Glowing Tags

Tagging physical objects to get a link from the physical world into some kind of technology has been done for a long time. The most commonly known is probably the barcodes that is used in five billion scans every day. During a project at Xerox Research Centre Europe in Cambridge, we came across the concept of Glow Tags. It is partly an expansion of the more traditional tags by, from a user perspective, making them more active. In many ways it is a logical next step in the development of tags. This paper will present the original conception of Glow Tags and illustrate what implications it could have for users. Further different forms of interaction styles such as playful, purposeful, and supportive will be considered in relation to the use of Glow Tags

Accountable interaction. Exploring interactional features of technology in use

Today we have computers in all kind of work places, and it is a fairly common artefact in many homes. What becomes an interesting topic when computers end up in everyday occasions and used by people who are not necessarily computer experts is how the user interface should be designed to be rendered practically useful. This thesis explores part of this problem by looking into the details of how we use technology and artifacts in our everyday activities and utilizes the insights for developing design concepts. Of particular interest is concept development for user interfaces that goes beyond the traditional desktop computer setup with a screen, keyboard and mouse as tools for interaction. The work relies on an ethnographic approach to get an understanding of moment-by-moment use of technology. Fields like Ubiquitous Computing and Computer Supported Cooperative Work are great sources for inspiration when it comes both to theoretical insights and visions about future use of computers

Do you mean here? Points of departure for design

It has been recognised that there is a need to get a better understanding of the user of technology in work as information technology progressively saturates users' everyday working environments. One motivating force has been a perceived need to link the design of new technology with the work actually being done. One way to do this has been to turn to ethnography as an analytic approach when studying work, and then try to relate the results to design in different ways. The main question in this thesis is precisely how technology is being used in everyday work activity. The individual papers include discussions about what the resulting analyses can do for design. The contributions from the analyses do nog guide design in any 'linear' way but can be brought to the 'design table' and serve as points of departures for design considerations

You mean here? - Video-mediated nurse-patient communication

This paper presents an analysis of an experimental setting where video-mediated communication between a nurse and a patient was used. The focus of the analysis is on the communication between the nurse and the patient and the role of the video conference system being used. The emphasis is on how video technology can support interpersonal communication, and thus the patient?s orientation not only to his nurse, but also to the knowledge that he is visible to his nurse, that is of interest here. This is done by referential practices which are directly analogous to those used in co-located situations. As a concluding discussion, the observations will be related to current and future design ideas

Nurses' methods and their relation to design

This paper is about technology in use and its possible relation to future design. The paper presents three cases taken from an ethnographic study at a dialysis department in Sweden.The observed methods of the participants in the work practices are in different ways related to the development of a remote dialysis system.In addition to giving an understanding of how technology is used in the work practice,the paper also concludes how these different cases can relate to,and inform,design in different ways