Moving on from Weiser's Vision of Calm Computing: engaging UbiComp experiences

A motivation behind much UbiComp research has been to make our lives convenient, comfortable and informed, following in the footsteps of Weiser's calm computing vision. Three themes that have dominated are context awareness, ambient intelligence and monitoring/tracking. While these avenues of research have been fruitful their accomplishments do not match up to anything like Weiser's world. This paper discusses why this is so and argues that is time for a change of direction in the field. An alternative agenda is outlined that focuses on engaging rather than calming people. Humans are very resourceful at exploiting their environments and extending their capabilities using existing strategies and tools. I describe how pervasive technologies can be added to the mix, outlining three areas of practice where there is much potential for professionals and laypeople alike to combine, adapt and use them in creative and constructive ways

Context-Aware Places of Interest Recommendations for Mobile Users

Abstract. Contextual knowledge has been traditionally used in Recommender Systems (RSs) to improve the recommendation accuracy of the core recommendation algorithm. Beyond this advantage, in this paper we argue that there is an additional benefit of context management; making more convincing recommendations because the system can use the contextual situation of the user to explain why an item has been recommended, i.e., the RS can pinpoint the relationships between the contextual situation and the recommended items to justify the suggestions. The results of a user study indicate that context management and this type of explanations increase the user satisfaction with the recommender system.

Informing the Development of Calendar Systems for Domestic Use

Abstract. This paper contributes to the design of Groupware Calendar Systems (GCSs) for use in domestic life. We consider a number of ethnographic studies of calendar use in domestic circumstances to illuminate the design space and inform design reasoning. GCSs have been employed in the workplace for sometime and have been informed by studies of ‘calendar work’. As design moves out of the workplace and into the home, the unique demands of domestic use now need to be considered. Existing insights into calendar work are restricted to the workplace however, and are constrained by analytic taxonomies. In the absence of first-hand knowledge of calendar use in domestic settings, we suspend the use of taxonomies and describe the ‘interpretive work ’ implicated in calendar work in order to explicate real world practices of calendar use in domestic life. These novel studies draw attention to a corpus of accountable work-practices that impact directly on design. In particular, they emphasize the need for design to consider how the physical and the digital may be merged to support collaboration ‘anywhere, anytime’; the necessity of devising negotiation protocols supporting computer-mediated communication; and the development of collaborative access models and interaction techniques to support data sharing

Informing the design of calendar systems for domestic use.

Abstract. This paper contributes to the design of Groupware Calendar Systems (GCSs) for use in domestic life. We consider a number of ethnographic studies of calendar use in domestic circumstances to illuminate the design space and inform design reasoning. GCSs have been employed in the workplace for sometime and have been informed by studies of ‘calendar work’. As design moves out of the workplace and into the home, the unique demands of domestic use now need to be considered. Existing insights into calendar work are restricted to the workplace however, and are constrained by analytic taxonomies. In the absence of first-hand knowledge of calendar use in domestic settings, we suspend the use of taxonomies and describe the ‘interpretive work ’ implicated in calendar work in order to explicate real world practices of calendar use in domestic life. These novel studies draw attention to a corpus of accountable work-practices that impact directly on design. In particular, they emphasize the need for design to consider how the physical and the digital may be merged to support collaboration ‘anywhere, anytime’; the necessity of devising negotiation protocols supporting computer-mediated communication; and the development of collaborative access models and interaction techniques to support data sharing

Smart artefacts as affordances for awareness in distributed teams

This book examines how the computer, as we currently know it, will be replaced by a new generation of technologies, moving computing off the desktop and ultimately integrating it with real world objects and everyday environments. Computing thus becomes an inseparable part of our everyday activities while simultaneously disappearing into the background. It becomes a ubiquitous utility taking on a role similar to electricity: an enabling but invisible and pervasive medium revealing its functionality on request in an unobtrusive way and supporting people’s everyday activities. The chapters, written by members of the Steering Group of the EU-funded Disappearing Computer research initiative, address the issues and challenges in this area

Supporting Collaboration Ubiquitously: An augmented learning environment for architecture students

While CSCW research has mostly been focusing on desktop applications there is a growing interest on ubiquitous and tangible computing. We present ethnographic fieldwork and prototypes to address how tangible computing can support collaboration and learning. The student projects at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna is a relevant case to study, for the variety and distributed character of the cooperative arrangements, and for the richness of interactions with heterogeneous physical artefacts. After describing current practices, we propose qualities of the environment that support collaboration and learning: creative density, multiple travels in materials and representations, re-programming (seeing things differently), and configurability. We then describe several prototypes that address in various ways these qualities. Finally we discuss how tangible and ubiquitous computing supports collaboration in our case by providing intermediary spaces, and dynamic objectifications