Aurélien Tabard

Evaluating peripheral interaction

Peripheral interaction, like ambient information systems (AIS), aims at leveraging the periphery of our attention. While ambient information systems address the perception of information, peripheral interaction targets lightweight interaction outside of the current focus of attention. A number of prototypes have demonstrated the value of peripheral interaction through long-term in-situ deployments. Such studies are particularly suited to evaluate peripheral interaction since they enable the integration of devices into daily routines and thereby move interaction to the periphery of attention. However, they do not lend themselves well to early design phases. In fact, the design process completely lacks early evaluation tools to assess design choices. We propose an experimental method for the evaluation of peripheral interaction in early design phases. In a case study, we compared the results of an eight-week in-situ deployment with the results of this laboratory experiment. We carried out the study with both, novice and experienced users (who had participated in the in-situ), and found comparable results across all three situations (in-situ and lab with novice and experienced users).

Avec le temps!: time, tempo, and turns in human-computer interaction

Time is central to HCI. Humans have varying conceptions and experiences of time: linear versus cyclical; discrete versus continuous; personal versus collective. Computational systems also represent time in various ways. And interaction itself plays out over time. Yet HCI has rarely examined time as a concept in its own right. In particular, the ways in which people conceive of and experience time are often at odds with the ways in which interactive systems represent and express temporal factors. In this workshop we aim to make explicit and question the tacit assumptions that underlie the use of time in human computer interaction. The focal themes for this workshop are: (1) examination of peoples conceptions of time vis a vis various topics (e.g. career, fashion, sustainability); (2) exploration of representations of time in systems; (3) the design of time-oriented interactive systems that support long term reflection, action and behavior change (e.g., as it applies to activities and phenomena like careers, fashion, and sustainability).

Using Visual Histories to Reconstruct the Mental Context of Suspended Activities

Resuming suspended activities is fundamental to knowledge work. As activities grow in complexity or fade from memory, they become increasingly difficult to cognitively resume. Motivated by the efficiency of images for cueing autobiographical memory, we conducted 2 studies of how visual histories of computer-mediated activity might aid users in restoring the mental context of suspended activities. In the first exploratory study we demonstrate that users provided a visual history consisting of small thumbnail images of their desktop can reconstruct detailed mental contexts of earlier computer work. In the second observational study we examine methods and cues that web developers, scientific writers, and graphic designers currently use to restore mental context. We find that participants from all three professions engage in situated sensemaking, reconstructing context by generating stories to explain cues in their documents with implicit meaning, such as sudden changes in writing quality or the shape of blocks of code. We identify characteristics of each activity that influence the information, artifacts, and strategies participants used to reconstruct context. We conclude that visual histories can help users reconstruct mental context but that challenges remain in designing lightweight image-based cues that help users reconstruct context for a range of activities.

Activity-Based Collaboration for Interactive Spaces

Activity-based computing (ABC) is a conceptual and technological framework for designing interactive systems that offers a better mapping between the activities people conduct and the digital entities they use. In ABC, rather than interacting directly with lower-level technical entities like files, folder, documents, etc., users are able to interact with ‘activities’ which encapsulate files and other low-level resources. In ABC an ‘activity’ can be shared between collaborating users and can be accessed on different devices. As such, ABC is a framework that suits the requirements of designing interactive spaces. This chapter provides an overview of ABC with a special focus on its support for collaboration (‘Activity Sharing’) and multiple devices (‘Activity Roaming’). These ABC concepts are illustrated as implemented in two different interactive spaces technologies; ReticularSpaces [1] and the eLabBench [2, 3]. The chapter discusses the benefits of activity-based collaboration support for these interactive spaces, while also discussing limitations and challenges to be addressed in further research.

Interactive Surface Composition Based on Arduino in Multi-Display Environments

Multi-display environments (MDEs) are becoming increasingly common. They combine numerous displays in a variety of physical arrangements to support a wide range of tasks and interactions. In this context, we are investigating how to support the dynamic reconfiguration of devices by users. For instance how users can seamlessly add new displays in the environment and how the overall interaction space can be adapted accordingly. We present an architecture based on a Web server and websockets that enables rapid pairing of devices (local or remote), and simple magnetic switches to provide location awareness of devices relative to each others. We apply this concept to a simple game, whose world can be extended by holding devices next to each other.

Long-Term Experiences with an Iterative Design of a QR-Code-Based Payment System for Beverages

We report on the design and long-term use of a digital tracking system for the consumption and payment tracing of beverages, called “Barkeeper”. It is based on tags wearing QR-codes and its design was not primarily guided by efficiency, but rather everyday use during the last three years in our lab. In this trusted environment, we collected extensive usage data, making this a serious long-term field deployment of UbiComp technology. We present the system, its iterative design evolution, the users’ views on it and insights gained by daily usage. We argue that QR-code interaction, when implemented in a very pragmatic way, can be not only a cheap but also a very powerful interaction technique. Based on our experience we propose a set of general rules, which make QR-code-based interaction practical and often superior to other interaction techniques.

TIDE: Lightweight Device Composition for Enhancing Tabletop Environments with Smartphone Applications

Interactive surfaces like tabletop computers provide large touch-enabled displays, support novel forms of interaction and collaboration, and extend computation to new environments. However, being a novel platform, the existing application pool is limited and applications existing for other platforms have to be re-developed. At the same time, smartphones are pervasive computers that users carry around and with a large pool of applications. This paper presents TIDE, a lightweight device composition middleware to bring existing smartphone applications onto the tabletop. Through TIDE, applications running on the smartphone are displayed on the tabletop computer, and users can interact with them through the tabletop’s interactive surface. TIDE contributes to the areas of device composition and tabletops by providing an OS-level middleware that is transparent to the smartphone applications, maintaining privacy by limiting content transfer between devices, and enhancing the usefulness of tabletops with already existing smartphone applications and software developers. We present the design and implementation of TIDE, the study of different interaction techniques to manipulate TIDE’s interactive content, and an analysis of different research directions. Initial user feedback shows that TIDE is easy to use, learnable, and convenient for collaborative activities and private environments.

A case study of object and occlusion management on the eLabBench, a mixed physical/digital tabletop

We investigate how users managed physical and digital objects during the longitudinal field deployment of a tabletop in a biology laboratory. Based on the analysis of 15 hours of video logs, we detail the objects used, their presence, use and organization, in this particular setting. We propose to consider occlusion as a situation which should be prevented rather than reacted to, particularly to avoid distracting changes or animations. This implies (1) pre-positioning digital content in locations where it is not likely to be occluded and (2) acknowledging that some physical objects are deliberately put in occluding positions. Since users want to interact with them conveniently, occlusion management action should not necessarily be triggered immediately.

PARTICIPATE: Capturing Knowledge in Public Library Activities

We present PARTICIPATE, a technology probe exploring how to strengthen the connection between activities taking place at public libraries and their collections, both in the digital realm and in the physical space. Based on ethnographic studies and participatory design activities, we derive three core implications for place- and activity centric library services. These implications led us to design PARTICIPATE in collaboration with library staff from three European countries. The probe is a mean to investigate how place- and activity-centric digital services in the library space can engage participants in co-creating knowledge, and enable libraries to integrate activities with library collections.

Design, Adjust and Reuse -- How Teachers Script Pedagogical Activities

Teachers are trained to plan and conduct pedagogical activities. But, as these activities become richer -i.e. more collaborative, with more open resources, and building upon increasing number of digital tools- planning becomes increasingly important. We conducted contextual interviews with seven middle and high school teachers, about their practices in planning and conducting pedagogical activities. We found that teachers design scripts to guide them through the session and scripts for students to use independently. They adjust their scripts during a session and edit them afterward. They reuse old scripts, adapt scripts from other teachers, and from online and physical sources.We derive implications for the design of scripting tools: sup-porting scripts at multiple levels of detail, or annotations for adjusting scripts during and after teaching sessions.