Picking pockets on the lawn: the development of tactics and strategies in a mobile game

This paper presents Treasure, an outdoor mobile multiplayer game inspired by Weiser’s notion of seams, gaps and breaks in different media. Playing Treasure involves movement in and out of a wi-fi network, using PDAs to pick up virtual ’coins’ that may be scattered outside network coverage. Coins have to be uploaded to a server to gain game points, and players can collaborate with teammates to double the points given for an upload. Players can also steal coins from opponents. As they move around, players’ PDAs sample network signal strength and update coverage maps. Reporting on a study of players taking part in multiple games, we discuss how their tactics and strategies developed as their experience grew with successive games. We suggest that meaningful play arises in just this way, and that repeated play is vital when evaluating such games

HCI at the boundary of work and life

The idea behind this Special Issue originates in a workshop on HCI and CSCW research related to work and non-work-life balance organized in conjunction with the ECSCW 2013 conference by the issue co-editors. Fifteen papers were originally submitted for possible inclusion in this Special Issue, and four papers were finally accepted for publication after two rounds of rigorous peer review. The four accepted papers explore, in different ways, HCI at the boundary of work and life. In this editorial, we offer a description of the overall theme and rationale for the Special Issue, including an introduction on the topic relevance and background, and a reflection on how the four accepted papers further current research and debate on the topic

From awareness to repartee: sharing location within social groups

This paper investigates emergent practices around 'microblogging', changing and sharing status within a social group. We present results from a trial of 'Connecto', a phone based status and location sharing application that allows a group to 'tag' areas and have individuals' locations shared automatically on a mobile phone. In use the system moved beyond being an awareness tool to a way of continuing the ongoing 'story' of conversations within the group. Through sharing status and location the system supported each groups' ongoing repartee - a site for social exchange, enjoyment and friendship

Increasing the Awareness of Daily Activity Levels with Pervasive Computing

Abstract—Public health promotion technology should be accessible to the general public at which it is aimed. This paper explores the potential for use of an unaugmented commodity technology—the mobile phone—as a health promotion tool. We describe a prototype application that tracks the daily exercise activities of people carrying phones, using fluctuation in signal strength to estimate a user’s movement. In a short-term study of the prototype that shared activity information amongst groups of friends, we found that awareness encouraged reflection on, and increased motivation for, daily activity. We describe some of the details of the pilot study, and conclude with our intended plans to develop the system further in order to carry out a longer-term clinical trial

K.: Improving cell phone awareness by using calendar information

Abstract. The many benefits that cell phones provide are at times overshadowed by the problems they create, as when one person’s cell phone disrupts a group activity, such as a class, meeting or movie. Cell phone interruption is only highlighted by the ever increasing number of mobile devices we carry. Many tools and techniques have been proposed in order to minimize interruption caused by mobile devices. In the current study, we use calendar information to infer users ’ activity and to automatically configure cell phones accordingly. Our in-situ experiment uses PDAs that run a cell phone simulator to examine the feasibility and design factors of such a solution. Our results show that both structured activities and appropriate cell phone configuration can be predicted with high accuracy using the calendar information. The results also show consistent mapping of activities to configuration for each individual. However there was a poor consistency of mapping activity to configuration across different participants. We discuss the results in relation to inaccuracy, spontaneous activities, and user reactions.