Connor Graham

A Review of Mobile HCI Research Methods

This paper examines and reviews research methods applied within the field of mobile human-computer interaction. The purpose is to provide a snapshot of current practice for studying mobile HCI to identify shortcomings in the way research is conducted and to propose opportunities for future approaches. 102 publications on mobile human-computer interaction research were categorized in a matrix relating their research methods and purpose. The matrix revealed a number of significant trends with a clear bias towards building systems and evaluating them only in laboratory settings, if at all. Also, gaps in the distribution of research approaches and purposes were identified; action research, case studies, field studies and basic research being applied very infrequently. Consequently, we argue that the bias towards building systems and a lack of research for understanding design and use limits the development of cumulative knowledge on mobile human computer interaction. This in turn inhibits future development of the research field as a whole.

Evaluating the usability of a mobile guide: The influence of location, participants and resources

When designing a usability evaluation, choices must be made regarding methods and techniques for data collection and analysis. Mobile guides raise new concerns and challenges to established usability evaluation approaches. Not only are they typically closely related to objects and activities in the users immediate surroundings, they are often used while the user is ambulating. This paper presents results from an extensive, multi-method evaluation of a mobile guide designed to support the use of public transport in Melbourne, Australia. In evaluating the guide, we applied four different techniques; field-evaluation, laboratory evaluation, heuristic walkthrough and rapid reflection. This paper describes these four approaches and their respective outcomes, and discusses their relative strengths and weaknesses for evaluating the usability of mobile guides.

Probing communities: study of a village photo display

In this paper we describe a technology probe aiming to aid understanding of how digital displays can help support communities. Using a simple photo gallery application, deployed in a central social point in a small village and displaying user-generated photos and videos, we have been able to gain an understanding of this setting, field test our device and inspire new ideas directly from members of the community. We explore the process of deploying this display, the response from residents and how the display has taken a place within the community.

Exploring awareness related messaging through two situated-display-based systems

ABSTRACT This article focuses on our exploration of awareness issues through the design and long-term deployment of two systems: the Hermes office door display system (which enabled staff in a university department to post awareness messages to their door displays) and SPAM (a messaging system for supporting coordination between staff at two associated residential community care facilities). In the case of both systems, a significant number of the messages sent could be classified as relating to awareness. Furthermore, with both systems, the situatedness of displays (outside office doors in the case of Hermes and in staff offices in the case of SPAM) had a significant impact on the design and subsequent use of the deployed systems. In particular, the placement of displays provided significant context for awareness messages, including, for example, the identity of the sender of the message and the intended audience of the message. Both systems highlight the need for interaction methods that fit in with both normal working practices (and unplanned events) and that enable the user to manage communication channels. The need for appropriate levels of expressiveness and user control is also apparent: We present numerous examples of users controlling the precision of awareness information and sending awareness messages that have as much to do with playfulness as supporting coordination through activity awareness. This work is funded by the EPSRC funded CASIDE project (grant EP/C005589). The work also builds on work carried out under the EPSRC-funded Equator and CASCO projects. For links to these projects and related work, see http://www.hcibook.com/alan/papers/exploring-awareness-2007/

Designing TramMateña context-aware mobile system supporting use of public transportation

We describe the design of a mobile information service that provides users with a route-planning tool for the tram-based public transport system of Melbourne, Australia. The design sketches for TramMate represent early iterations of an ongoing design process based on data from field studies on the use of transportation by business employees who, during a typical workday, have to attend appointments at different physical locations. TramMate supports this activity by keeping track of contextual factors such as the userís physical location, upcoming appointments, and real-time travel information. The design is integrated with an electronic calendar and alerts the user when it is necessary to commence the journey.

Developing Digital Records: Early Experiences of Record and Replay

In this paper we consider the development of ‘digital records’ to support ethnographic study of interaction and collaboration in ubiquitous computing environments and articulate the core concept of ‘record and replay’ through two case studies. One focuses on the utility of digital records, or records of interaction generated by a computer system, to ethnographic inquiry and highlights the mutually supportive nature of digital records and ethnographic methods. The other focuses on the work it takes to make digital records support ethnography, particularly the work of description and representation that is required to reconcile the fragmented character of interaction in ubiquitous computing environments. The work involved in ‘making digital records work’ highlights requirements for the design of tools to support the endeavour and informs the development of a Replay Tool. This tool enables ethnographers to visualize the data content of digital records; to extract sequences of relevance to analysis and remove non-relevant features; to marry recorded content with external resources, such as video; to add content from internal and external resources through annotation; and to reorder digital records to reflect the interactional order of events rather than the recorded order of events.

Introduction to the Special Issue on the Death, Afterlife, and Immortality of Bodies and Data

This special issue poses questions concerning death, afterlife and immortality in the age of the Internet. It extends previous work by examining current and emerging practices of grieving and memorializing supported by new media. It suggests that peoples lives today are extended, prolonged, and ultimately transformed through the new circulations, repetitions, and recontextualizations on the Internet and other platforms. It also shows that publics are being formed and connected with in new ways, and new practices and rituals are emerging, as the traditional notions of the body are being challenged. We argue that these developments have implications for how people will be discovered and conceived of in the future. We consider possible extensions to the research presented here in terms of people, practices, and data. First, some sections of the population, in particular those who are the dying and populations in developing countries and the Global South, have largely been neglected to date. Second, practices such as (online) suicide and sacrilegious or profane behaviors remain largely uninvestigated. Third, the discussion of the management of the digital self after death has only begun. We conclude by posing further questions concerning the prospect of emerging cities of the dead.

Theme issue on social interaction and mundane technologies

In ‘‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’’ [1, 2], a university professor Dr. Bryce, is stunned by the rapid development, adoption and deployment of a number of technologies— including, for example, ‘‘self-developing’’ photographic film. Bryce is shocked by the fact that these advances have passed him by, become mundane artefacts in everyday use, without him noticing, in a field, a discipline, where he is supposed to be an expert. For many of us, it is not only the sheer pace of technology change that is so bewildering but also the impact of new technologies on how different social interactions are performed [3] and orchestrated [4]—such as relationship behaviour, family obligations and the etiquette of social interaction. The call for papers for this theme issue on Social Interaction and Mundane Technologies was particularly motivated by this desire to examine, document and understand how everyday social interactions are effected by, inhibited by or facilitated through the use of a range of mundane technologies and applications. By mundane technologies we mean technologies and applications that are commonplace, which lots of people use, such as mobile phones, texting, email, word-processing applications (e.g. Microsoft Word), presentation software (e.g. OpenOffice.org’s Impress), electronic spreadsheets (e.g. Apple’s Numbers) and so on. As Michaels [5] suggests, ‘‘the term ‘mundane technologies’ connotes those technologies whose novelty has worn off; these are technologies which are now fully integrated into, and are an unremarkable part of, everyday life. To study mundane technologies is thus to explore how they mediate and reflect everyday life, how they serve in the reproduction of local techno-social configurations.’’ Thus, when we discuss mundane technologies we are not necessarily talking about what Hillman and Gibbs [6] in their book ‘‘Century Makers’’ describe as ‘‘things we take for granted which have changed our lives’’. For Hillman and Gibbs these are devices—like the ring-pull can, the Post-it note or the pocket calculator—that have played an important part in much larger social and socio-technical changes despite now appearing trivial, everyday and commonplace. What the full range of long-term impacts the various technologies documented in these papers might be we cannot, as yet, ascertain. The technologies do, however, share the ‘cleverness’ of Hillman and Gibbs’ clever things in ‘‘their capacity to be unnoticed, to quietly mediate, that is reproduce, what have become the commonalities of everyday life’’ [5]. Mundane technologies have also been the focus of other earlier work—both in organizational and domestic settings. For example, Michaels [7] has studied walking boots as a C. Graham is an independent researcher.

Blogging as ‘therapy’? Exploring personal technologies for smoking cessation

This article presents some early, design-oriented research findings from a study that introduced mobile blogging technologies to four people who wished to make a health-related life change — giving up smoking. We wanted to establish the nature of the relationship between blogging and quitting smoking (if any), inspired by some earlier work in the domain showing that social technologies may help with the quit process. We present an account of three participants, documenting details of how blogging technologies fitted into their (changing) lives and examples of digital content they produced. We describe, using examples from participant blogs, instances of self-expression, replacement and self-awareness. We suggest, despite all participants failing in their quit attempts, that there are possible provisional, therapeutic characteristics to such social technologies. Finally, we suggest this therapeutic process can be understood better through a concept of personal translucence.

New visual technologies: shifting boundaries, shared moments

Visual technology has been, and continues to be, noticeably transformed in a number of important areas. As carriers (e.g. cellular networks, the Internet), as production technologies (e.g. digital camcorders and cameras, mobile phones), as display technologies (e.g. public displays, mobile phone projectors) and as services (e.g. Flickr, MMS, blogs), some of these developments are grossly observable. Other aspects of these changes are, perhaps, more subtle and nuanced. This special issue sets out to explore these transformations through eight papers addressing specific aspects of new visual technologies. The papers largely consider visual technologies as socio-technical things embedded and emplaced in the world.