Exploring the design space for situated glyphs to support dynamic work environments

This note offers a reflection on the design space for a situated glyph - a single, adaptive and multivariate graphical unit that provides in-situ task information in demanding work environments. Rather than presenting a concrete solution, our objective is to map out the broad design space to foster further exploration. The analysis of this design space in the context of dynamic work environments covers i) information affinity - the type of information can be presented with situated glyphs, ii) representation density - the medium and fidelity of information presentation, iii) spatial distribution - distribution granularity and placement alternatives for situated glyphs, and finally iv) temporal distribution - the timing of information provision through glyphs. Our analysis has uncovered new problem spaces that are still unexplored and could motivate further work in the field

Compositionality of Team Mental Models in Relation to Sharedness and Team Performance

Abstract. “The better the team mental model, the better the teamwork”, or so is said, in which better model refers to the extent to which the model is shared by the team members. This paper argues that according to circumstances, some components of that model are more relevant with respect to team performance than others. Circumstances change with the dynamics of the environment, the team composition and organization, its members, and the team task. Consequently, a compositional approach to measuring sharedness of team mental models is proposed. A case study illustrates the argument and the approach

Situated Micro-displays for Activity-Aware Systems

Abstract. Most activity-aware systems designed to support mobile workers in dynamic environments, such as hospitals or industrial plants, typically consider the use of mobile devices and large displays. However, we envision potential benefits of using ubiquitous micro-displays as support of mobile workers activities. Particularly, in this paper we show how the use of situated micro-displays, as a mechanism for embedding information into a physical environment, can contribute to improve the performance and experience of mobile workers in those scenarios. The article also describes the prototype of a micro-display network designed to support people performing spatially distributed activities. It also presents a user study that helps understand how the spatial distribution of situated micro-displays impacts on the mobile workers performance