Alan Dix

Exploiting space and location as a design framework for interactive mobile systems

This article considers the importance of context in mobile systems. It considers a range of context-related issues and focus on location as a key issue for mobile systems. A design framework is described consisting of taxonomies of location, mobility, population, and device awareness. The design framework inorms the construction of a semantic model of space for mobile systems. The semantic model is reflected in a computational model built on a distriuted platform that allows contextual information to be shared across a number of mobile devices. The framework support the design of interactive mobile systems while the platform supports their rapid development.

A Taxonomy of Clutter Reduction for Information Visualisation

Information visualisation is about gaining insight into data through a visual representation. This data is often multivariate and increasingly, the datasets are very large. To help us explore all this data, numerous visualisation applications, both commercial and research prototypes, have been designed using a variety of techniques and algorithms. Whether they are dedicated to geo-spatial data or skewed hierarchical data, most of the visualisations need to adopt strategies for dealing with overcrowded displays, brought about by too much data to fit in too small a display space. This paper analyses a large number of these clutter reduction methods, classifying them both in terms of how they deal with clutter reduction and more importantly, in terms of the benefits and losses. The aim of the resulting taxonomy is to act as a guide to match techniques to problems where different criteria may have different importance, and more importantly as a means to critique and hence develop existing and new techniques.

The Frame of the Game: Blurring the Boundary between Fiction and Reality in Mobile Experiences

Mobile experiences that take place in public settings such as on city streets create new opportunities for interweaving the fictional world of a performance or game with the everyday physical world. A study of a touring performance reveals how designers generated excitement and dramatic tension by implicating bystanders and encouraging the (apparent) crossing of normal boundaries of behaviour. The study also shows how designers dealt with associated risks through a process of careful orchestration. Consequently, we extend an existing framework for designing spectator interfaces with the concept of performance frames, enabling us to distinguish audience from bystanders. We conclude that using ambiguity to blur the frame can be a powerful design tactic, empowering players to willingly suspend disbelief, so long as a safety-net of orchestration ensures that they do not stray into genuine difficulty.Mobile experiences that take place in public settings such as on city streets create new opportunities for interweaving the fictional world of a performance or game with the everyday physical world. A study of a touring performance reveals how designers generated excitement and dramatic tension by implicating bystanders and encouraging the (apparent) crossing of normal boundaries of behaviour. The study also shows how designers dealt with associated risks through a process of careful orchestration. Consequently, we extend an existing framework for designing spectator interfaces with the concept of performance frames, enabling us to distinguish audience from bystanders. We conclude that using ambiguity to blur the frame can be a powerful design tactic, empowering players to willingly suspend disbelief, so long as a safety-net of orchestration ensures that they do not stray into genuine difficulty.

Using frustration in the design of adaptive videogames

In efforts to attract a wider audience, videogames are beginning to incorporate adaptive gameplay mechanics. Unlike the more traditional videogame, adaptive games can cater the gaming experience to the individual user and not just a particular group of users as with the former. Affective videogames, games that respond to the users emotional state, may hold the key to creating such gameplay mechanics. In this paper we discus how the emotion frustration may be used in the design of adaptive videogames and the ongoing research into its detection and measurement.

Exploring the facebook experience: a new approach to usability

The focus of this paper is to explore social networking sites such as Facebook in order to understand their recent success and popularity. Recent developments within Web 2.0 have provided users with more freedom to create their own unique user experiences. The conflict between traditional usability methods and user experiences are addressed through carrying out a Heuristic Evaluation to assess how well Facebook complies with usability guidelines and by conducting a user study to unveil unique user experiences. The findings of this study calls for a more holistic method of evaluation that redefines usability to encompass the user experience in line with future technology.

A taxonomy for and analysis of multi-person-display ecosystems

Interactive displays are increasingly being distributed in a broad spectrum of everyday life environments: they have very diverse form factors and portability characteristics, support a variety of interaction techniques, and can be used by a variable number of people. The coupling of multiple displays creates an interactive “ecosystem of displays”. Such an ecosystem is suitable for particular social contexts, which in turn generates novel settings for communication and performance and challenges in ownership. This paper aims at providing a design space that can inform the designers of such ecosystems. To this end, we provide a taxonomy that builds on the size of the ecosystem and on the degree of individual engagement as dimensions. We recognize areas where physical constraints imply certain kinds of social engagement, versus other areas where further work on interaction techniques for coupling displays can open new design spaces.

Giving undo attention

Abstract The problems associated with the provision of an undo support facility in the context of a synchronous shared or group editor are investigated. Previous work on the development of formal models of ‘undo’ has been restricted to single user systems and has focused on the functionality of undo, as opposed to discussing the support that users require from any error recovery facility. Motivated by new issues that arise in the context of computer supported co-operative work, the authors aim to integrate formal modelling of undo with an analysis of how users understand undo facilities. Together, these combined perspectives of the system and user lead to concrete design advice for implementing an undo facility. The special issues that arise in the context of shared undo also shed light on the emphasis that should be placed on single user undo. In particular, the authors regard undo not as a system command to be implemented, but as a user intention to be supported by the system.

Exploring bluetooth based mobile phone interaction with the hermes photo display

One of the most promising possibilities for supporting user interaction with public displays is the use of personal mobile phones. Furthermore, by utilising Bluetooth users should have the capability to interact with displays without incurring personal financial connectivity costs. However, despite the relative maturity of Bluetooth as a standard and its widespread adoption in todays mobile phones, little exploration seems to have taken place in this area - despite its apparent significant potential. This paper describe the findings of an exploratory study involving our Hermes Photo Display which has been extended to enable users with a suitable phone to both send and receive pictures over Bluetooth. We present both the technical challenges of working with Bluetooth and, through our user study, we present initial insights into general user acceptability issues and the potential for such a display to facilitate notions of community.

Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A Framework

This chapter presents a framework for considering different aspects of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and different CSCW systems. We are also able to look at systems not normally regarded as having a CSCW element, and consider their positive and negative impacts on cooperation. The aim of the framework is to enhance understanding of existing areas, and hence both to develop them and also to suggest new avenues for research and development. We shall place existing concepts such as computer mediated communication, deixis and communication through the work itself within the framework. We shall also consider many familiar shared tasks from both CSCW and non-CSCW systems, including meeting rooms, shared editing, piano moving and bar codes. The significance of this work is not in the particular examples presented, but in the structure within which they sit.

An explorative analysis of user evaluation studies in information visualisation

This paper presents an analysis of user studies from a review of papers describing new visualisation applications and uses these to highlight various issues related to the evaluation of visualisations. We first consider some of the reasons why the process of evaluating visualisations is so difficult. We then dissect the problem by discussing the importance of recognising the nature of experimental design, datasets and participants as well as the statistical analysis of results. We propose explorative evaluation as a method of discovering new things about visualisation techniques, which may give us a better understanding of the mechanisms of visualisations. Finally we give some practical guidance on how to do evaluation correctly.