The whereabouts clock: early testing of a situated awareness device

ABSTRACT

We describe the initial deployment of a prototype device to support awareness of people's location and activities in an office environment. This is a first step toward the design and testing of a related device for the home. Findings from this workplace trial show its value in helping people have a virtual presence, in locating people, and in fostering a sense of group belonging. However, the results also suggest how the design could be made more flexible and expressive which we will explore in the upcoming home trial.

REFERENCES

• 1: Chalmers, M., Bell, M., Brown, B., Hall, M., Sherwood, S., & Tennant, P. (2005). Gaming on the edge: Using seams in ubicomp games. Proc. of ACM Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE).
• 2: Keith Cheverst , Nigel Davies , Keith Mitchell , Adrian Friday , Christos Efstratiou, Developing a context-aware electronic tourist guide: some issues and experiences, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.17-24, April 01-06, 2000, The Hague, The Netherlands [doi>10.1145/332040.332047]
• 3: Cheverst, K., Fitton, D. and Rouncefield, M. (2004). Working text: Texting work. In Harper, R., Palen, L. & Taylor, A. (Eds.) The Inside Text: Social, Cultural and Design Perspectives on SMS, Springer, p. 253--268.
• 4: Churchill, E., Nelson, L., Denoue, L., Murphy, P. & Helfman, D. (2003). The plasma poster network. In O'Hara, K. Perry, M. Churchill, L. & Russell, D. (Eds) Public and Situated Displays, Kluwer, pp 233--260
• 5: Andrew E. Fano, Shopper's eye: using location-based filtering for a shopping agent in the physical world, Proceedings of the second international conference on Autonomous agents, p.416-421, May 10-13, 1998, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States [doi>10.1145/280765.280875]
• 6: R. H. R. Harper , M. G. Lamming , W. M. Newman, Locating systems at work: implications for the development of active badge applications, Interacting with Computers, v.4 n.3, p.343-363, Dec. 1992 [doi>10.1016/0953-5438(92)90022-8]
• 7: Giovanni Iachello , Ian Smith , Sunny Consolvo , Mike Chen , Gregory D. Abowd, Developing privacy guidelines for social location disclosure applications and services, Proceedings of the 2005 symposium on Usable privacy and security, p.65-76, July 06-08, 2005, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [doi>10.1145/1073001.1073008]
• 8: Krumm & Hinckley (2004). The NearMe wireless proximity server. Proc. Ubicomp, pp. 283--300.
• 9: Plaisant, C., Bederson, B., Clamage, A., Hutchinson, H., & Guimbretièère, F., (2003). Shared Family Calendars: Promoting Symmetry and Accessibility, Tech Rep HCIL-2003-38, U. of Maryland.
• 10: Chris Schmandt , Natalia Marmasse, User-Centered Location Awareness, Computer, v.37 n.10, p.110-111, October 2004 [doi>10.1109/MC.2004.182]
• 11: Sellen, A.J., Beech, S., Geelhoed, E., Murphy, R., Parker, J., & Shaw, K. (2003). The Lifestyles of Working Parents: Implications and Opportunities for New Technologies. HP Labs Tech. Rep. HPL-2003-88.
• 12: Sellen, A., Harper, R., Eardley, R., Izadi, S., Regan, T., Taylor, A., & Wood, K. (2006). Situated messaging in the home. MSR Tech Rep.
• 13: Trimble, J. Wales, R. Gosswelier. R (2003). NASA's MERBoard. In O'Hara, K. Perry, M. Churchill, L. & Russell, D. (Eds.), Public and Situated Displays, Kluwer, pp. 18--4.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.m Miscellaneous

Keywords:
clock, communication, home technology, location-based systems, mobile phone, situated display, user trial