Ana Melro

Beyond interaction: tools and practices for situated publication in display networks

The ability to engage users in content generation is both a major goal and a major challenge for public displays. While previous work has extensively explored the specific challenges associated with interaction processes, little attention has been paid to the broad range of issues that go beyond interaction itself. More specifically, public display systems do not seem to offer a set of tools and techniques that people may feel comfortable to use for whatever communication purposes they might have. There are no publication concepts that can frame expectations on how content creation, distribution, presentation and curation are handled by display systems. In our research, we seek to explore new publication concepts for public displays, and for that purpose we have developed instant places, a platform enabling people to connect with the places they visit and control the projection of their identity in public displays. The system frames interaction events within two specific publication concepts: pin badges and posters. We describe our first deployments at three different locations and the results obtained from usage data and in-situ surveys about content publication practices.

Media Sharing in Situated Displays: Service Design Lessons from Existing Practices with Paper Leaflets

Digital public displays have an enormous potential as a collaborative technology to socialize in public venues, especially when they are open to the participation of visitors. However, user-generated content is a form of control sharing that requires safeguards against the publication of content deemed inappropriate. In this work, we study the perceptions of Cafe owners in regard to their acceptance of user-generated content displayed on their venue screens. Our goal is to inform the design of new media sharing services for public displays by uncovering how existing practices with paper leaflets could be leveraged as a conceptual framework for dealing with content appropriateness. Based on interviews with 10 cafe owners, we identify important insights into some of practices surrounding the distribution of paper leaflets and their implications for the design of media sharing services for public displays.

Design Lessons from Deploying NFC Mobile Payments

The adoption of mobile payment systems is known to face multiple concerns regarding security, usability and value proposition. In this work, we start from the assumption that initial acceptance will always be weak because of the lack of an established usage frame. Instead, we focus on understanding how we can leverage upon the real contact with the technology to create a solid path for gradual acceptance through the development of new practices and the increasing perception of value. In this study, we report on our findings with a real-world prototype of a NFC-based payment system. We identify a set of design lessons that may help to improve the initial phases of NFC-based payment deployments and provide a path for the adoption that focuses on positive initial user experiences and early adoption scenarios.