Elizabeth D. Mynatt

Charting past, present, and future research in ubiquitous computing

The proliferation of computing into the physical world promises more than the ubiquitous availability of computing infrastructure; it suggest new paradigms of interaction inspired by constant access to information and computational capabilities. For the past decade, application-driven research on abiquitous computing (ubicomp) has pushed three interaction themes:natural interfaces, context-aware applications,andautomated capture and access. To chart a course for future research in ubiquitous computing, we review the accomplishments of these efforts and point to remaining research challenges. Research in ubiquitious computing implicitly requires addressing some notion of scale, whether in the number and type of devices, the physical space of distributed computing, or the number of people using a system. We posit a new area of applications research, everyday computing, focussed on scaling interaction with respect to time. Just as pushing the availiability of computing away from the traditional desktop fundamentally changes the relationship between humans and computers, providing continuous interaction moves computing from a localized tool to a constant companion. Designing for continous interaction requires addressing interruption and reumption of intreaction, representing passages of time and providing associative storage models. Inherent in all of these interaction themes are difficult issues in the social implications of ubiquitous computing and the challenges of evaluating> ubiquitious computing research. Although cumulative experience points to lessons in privacy, security, visibility, and control, there are no simple guidelines for steering research efforts. Akin to any efforts involving new technologies, evaluation strategies form a spectrum from technology feasibility efforts to long-term use studies—but a user-centric perspective is always possible and necessary

The Aware Home: A Living Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing Research

We are building a home, called the Aware Home, to create a living laboratory for research in ubiquitous computing for everyday activities. This paper introduces the Aware Home project and outlines some of our technology-and human-centered research objectives in creating the Aware Home.

Digital family portraits: supporting peace of mind for extended family members

A growing social problem in the U.S., and elsewhere, is supporting older adults who want to continue living independently, as opposed to moving to an institutional care setting. One key part of this complex problem is providing awareness of senior adults day-to-day activities, promoting peace of mind for extended family members. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a digital family portrait that provides qualitative visualizations of a family members daily life. Leveraging a familiar household object, the picture frame, our design populates the frame with iconic imagery summarizing 28 days. In a final implementation, the digital family portrait would gather information from sensors in the home.

The human experience [of ubiquitous computing]

To address M. Weisers (ibid., p. 19-25) human-centered vision of ubiquitous computing, the authors focus on physical interaction, general application features and theories of design and evaluation for this new mode of human-computer interaction.

Flatland: new dimensions in office whiteboards

Flatland is an augmented whiteboard interface designed forinformal office work. Our research investigates approaches tobuilding an augmented whiteboard in the context of continuous, longterm office use. In particular, we pursued three avenues ofresearch based on input from user studies: techniques for themanagement of space on the board, the ability to flexibly applybehaviors to support varied application semantics, and mechanismsfor managing history on the board. Unlike some previously reportedwhiteboard systems, our design choices have been influenced by adesire to support long-term, informal use in an individual officesetting.

UbiComp 2004: Ubiquitous Computing

This paper addresses users’ experiences with an ambient display for the home. We present the design and in situ evaluation of the CareNet Display, an ambient display that helps the local members of an elder’s care network provide her day-to-day care. We describe the CareNet Display’s design and discuss results of a series of in home deployments with users. We report how the CareNet Display was used and its impact on elders and their care network members. Based on our findings, we offer lessons about how ambient display technologies could be improved to further benefit this growing user community.

Designing audio aura

In this paper. we describe the process behind the design of Audio Aura. The goal of Audio Aura is to provide serendipitous information, via background auditory cues, that is tied to people’s physical actions in the workplace. We used scenarios to explore issues in serendipitous information such as privacy and work practice. Our sound design was guided by a number of strategies for creating peripheral sounds grouped in cohesive ecologies. Faced with an physical and software infrastructure under development in a laboratory distant f?om our sound studio. we prototyped different sonic landscapes in VRML worlds. In our infrastructure design, we made a number of trade-offs in our use of legacy systems and our client-server design.

Increasing the opportunities for aging in place

A growing social problem in the U.S. and elsewhere is supporting older adults who want to continue living independently as opposed to moving to an institutional care setting. The “Aging in Place” project strives to delay taking that first step away from the family home. Through the careful placement of technological support we believe older adults can continue living in their own homes longer. The goal of our research is to take a three-pronged approach to understanding the potential of such environmental supports. The research team combines expertise in human-computer-interaction, computational perception, and cognitive aging. Together the team is assessing the feasibility of designing environments that aid older individuals in maintaining their independence. Based on our initial research, we are dividing this work into three parts: recognizing and adverting crisis, assisting daily routines, and supporting peace of mind for adult children.

Support for multitasking and background awareness using interactive peripheral displays

In this paper, we describe Kimura, an augmented office environment to support common multitasking practices. Previous systems, such as Rooms, limit users by constraining the interaction to the desktop monitor. In Kimura, we leverage interactive projected peripheral displays to support the perusal, manipulation and awareness of background activities. Furthermore, each activity is represented by a montage comprised of images from current and past interaction on the desktop. These montages help remind the user of past actions, and serve as a springboard for ambient context-aware reminders and notifications.

The Georgia Tech aware home

The Aware Home Research Initiative (AHRI) at Georgia Tech is devoted to the multidisciplinary exploration of emerging technologies and services based in the home. Starting in 1998, our collection of faculty and students has created a unique research facility that allows us to simulate and evaluate user experiences with off-the-shelf and state-of-the-art technologies. With specific expertise in health, education, entertainment and usable security, we are able to apply our research to problems of significant social and economic impact.