Ubipay: conducting everyday payments with minimum user involvement

ABSTRACT

As services embedded into public spaces become increasingly transparent, one peripheral aspect of use continues to demand explicit user attention: payment. UbiPay is a system that carries out small everyday payments in a way that minimises user involvement by choosing an interaction method based on context information. The aim is to make paying like breathing: something we are only peripherally aware of unless we exert our resources beyond the usual. This idea has powerful implications for business and design.

REFERENCES

• 1: ürg, N. Transaction Costs. The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 4, pp. 677--80 (1987).
• 2: Hiroaki Kimura , Eiji Tokunaga , Yohei Okuda , Tatsuo Nakajima, CookieFlavors: easy building blocks for wireless tangible input, CHI '06 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 22-27, 2006, Montréal, Québec, Canada [doi>10.1145/1125451.1125637]
• 3: Shapiro, C. and Varian, H. R. Information Rules. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., USA, 1998.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.4 Electronic Commerce
          Subjects: Payment schemes

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Input devices and strategies (e.g., mouse, touchscreen)

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.4 Electronic Commerce
          Subjects: Cybercash, digital cash

General Terms:
Design, Economics, Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
electronic payment, mobile devices, transaction costs