Exploring PC-telephone convergence with the enhanced telephony prototype

ABSTRACT

Industry trends suggest that the PC and telephone user experiences will converge over the next several years. This convergence raises important questions for the HCI community: how should the PC-phone user experience be designed, and how does PC-phone technology affect work practices? This paper focuses on the first question and provides some initial data on the second question. We describe a PC-phone prototype we built called Enhanced Telephony, and we report data from an eight month field deployment of Enhanced Telephony within our company where over 7,000 people installed the prototype. Results indicate that PC-phone software is a promising technology for the workplace and that the most valuable features may be those that help people manage their incoming calls.

REFERENCES

• 1: Apple iSync. http://www.apple.com/isync
• 2: Avaya IP Softphone. http://www.avaya.com
• 3: Stephen A. Brewster, Navigating Telephone-Based Interfaces with Earcons, Proceedings of HCI on People and Computers XII, p.39-56, January 1997
• 4: Cisco IP Softphone. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps1860/
• 5: Nancy Griffeth, Making a simple interface complex: interactions among telephone features, Conference companion on Human factors in computing systems: common ground, p.244-245, April 13-18, 1996, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada [doi>10.1145/257089.257303]
• 6: Hafner, K. Revolution in the Dorms of Dartmouth. The New York Times, September 23, 2003, p. C7.
• 7: R. Halstead-Nussloch, The design of phone-based interfaces for consumers, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Wings for the mind, p.347-352, March 1989
• 8: Herrell, H. Market Overview 2003: IP Telephony Voice Communications Systems. Giga Information Group, June 2, 2003.
• 9: Herring, R., List, J., and Youngs, E. Screen-Assisted Telephony and Voice Service Usability. Proceedings Human Factors Society 36th Annual Meeting, 1992, 221.
• 10: Horvitz, E., Apacible, J., Subramani, M., Sarin, R., Koch, P., Cadiz, J., Narin, A., and Rui, Y. Experiences with the Design, Fielding, and Evaluation of a Real-Time Communications Agent. Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2003-98.
• 11: Isys Information Architects. Interface Hall of Shame: IBM's Real Phone. http://digilander.libero.it/ chiediloapippo/Engineering/iarchitect/
• 12: Bonnie E. John, Extensions of GOMS analyses to expert performance requiring perception of dynamic visual and auditory information, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Empowering people, p.107-116, April 01-05, 1990, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/97243.97262]
• 13: Latour, A., and Delaney, K. J. KaZaA Creators Connect to Phones. The Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2003, p. B5.
• 14: Allen E. Milewski , Thomas M. Smith, Providing presence cues to telephone users, Proceedings of the 2000 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.89-96, December 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/358916.358978]
• 15: Les Nelson , Sara Bly , Tomas Sokoler, Quiet calls: talking silently on mobile phones, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.174-181, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/365024.365094]
• 16: Net2Phone, http://www.net2phone.com
• 17: Paul Resnick , Robert A. Virzi, Skip and scan: cleaning up telephone interface, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.419-426, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142881]
• 18: T. L. Roberts , G. Engelbeck, The effects of device technology on the usability of advanced telephone functions, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Wings for the mind, p.331-337, March 1989
• 19: Pamela Savage, Designing a GUI for business telephone users, interactions, v.2 n.1, p.32-41, Jan. 1995 [doi>10.1145/208143.208157]
• 20: John C. Tang , Nicole Yankelovich , James Begole , Max Van Kleek , Francis Li , Janak Bhalodia, ConNexus to awarenex: extending awareness to mobile users, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.221-228, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/365024.365105]

INDEX TERMS

Primary 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: Graphical user interfaces (GUI)

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: Prototyping; Evaluation/methodology
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Synchronous interaction

General Terms:
Design

Keywords:
computer mediated communication, computer telephony integration (CTI), telephones