MobiSys 2016

The 14th ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys 2016) spanned a range of themes and domains, from smart environments to security and privacy. The highlights presented here cover the keynotes, paper sessions, and first Asian Students Symposium on Emerging Technologies

A survey of pervasive displays for information presentation

Weiser’s seminal vision of ubiquitous computing had calm information presentation at its heart and identified an important challenge in providing pervasive yet unobtrusive information display while avoiding problems of information overload. Since this vision was first articulated, a range of approaches have emerged for presenting information on pervasive displays and digital screens of varying sizes are now an everyday feature of our environments. Such displays provide significant opportunities for presenting information in-situ to support users in a range of activities, and the growing expectation is that there is constant peripheral access to digital information. In this article we review three different pervasive display technologies used for information presentation: traditional 2D display media, urban media facades, and novel display hardware. Our survey identifies five emerging trends that cross all three technologies: an increasing focus on situatedness, a movement towards non-expert users, growing demand for accessible interaction, a potential for new applications of data, and a difficulty in balancing ‘calm’ computing against presentation of data at an appropriate granularity and complexity

Design Considerations for Multi-Stakeholder Display Analytics

Measuring viewer interactions through detailed analytics will be crucial to improving the overall performance of future open display networks. However, in contrast to traditional sign and web analytics systems, such display networks are likely to feature multiple stakeholders each with the ability to collect a subset of the required analytics information. Combining analytics data from multiple stakeholders could lead to new insights, but stakeholders may have limited willingness to share information due to privacy concerns or commercial sensitivities. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of analytics data that might be captured by different stakeholders in a display network, make the case for the synthesis of analytics data in such display networks, present design considerations for future architectures designed to enable the sharing of display analytics information, and offer an example of how such systems might be implemented

Better off:when should pervasive displays be powered down?

Digital displays are a ubiquitous feature of our public spaces - both ever present, and "always on". In this paper we use a combination of literature survey, experimental work, and stakeholder interviews to consider if maximising the amount of time such displays are powered on is truly advantageous. We challenge existing practice by considering arguments from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (viewers, passers-by, content creators and signage owners), and identify multiple facets for consideration including levels of attention, cognitive load, impact on social interactions, energy and financial costs, advertising revenue, perceptions of failure and the pressures of creating valuable content

Communication Needs of Elderly at Risk of Falls and their Remote Family

The aging population experiences increased health risks, both physical and emotional. Two such risks are those of isolation and falling. This papers draws from HCI literature in these two independent research areas to explore the needs of family communication with elderly parents at risk of falls. We report on a study with 7 elderly parents and 3 of adult children, as well as a group interview with 12 elderly living in a sheltered accommodation. Findings indicate important emotional needs on both parts: adult children’s anxiety for the wellbeing of their parents at risk of falls, and elderly’s need for autonomy and their appreciation for an aesthetic design. We concluded with implications of these findings for designing for family communication in this challenging context

A survey of pervasive displays for information presentation

Weiser’s seminal vision of ubiquitous computing had calm information presentation at its heart and identified an important challenge in providing pervasive yet unobtrusive information display while avoiding problems of information overload. Since this vision was first articulated, a range of approaches have emerged for presenting information on pervasive displays and digital screens of varying sizes are now an everyday feature of our environments. Such displays provide significant opportunities for presenting information in-situ to support users in a range of activities, and the growing expectation is that there is constant peripheral access to digital information. In this article we review three different pervasive display technologies used for information presentation: traditional 2D display media, urban media facades, and novel display hardware. Our survey identifies five emerging trends that cross all three technologies: an increasing focus on situatedness, a movement towards non-expert users, growing demand for accessible interaction, a potential for new applications of data, and a difficulty in balancing ‘calm’ computing against presentation of data at an appropriate granularity and complexity

Transitioning from a research deployment to a service

In 2006, we reported lessons from two years experience with pervasive displays [4]. These experiences helped shape the development of the e-Campus platform that now includes 50 networked displays in a variety of residential, office and public spaces at Lancaster University. e-Campus has been running continuously as a research testbed for more than ten years and is now adopted as the University's primary digital signage platform. This represents the completion of its transition from a pure research platform to a system that must truly function as both a signage service and research testbed