Jh Berry Eggen

Informing augmented memory system design through autobiographical memory theory

Autobiographical memory (AM) is the “memory for the events in one’s life” [1]. Often it is assumed that in order to remember all those events, you just need to record everything and when you replay these recordings you will remember those events. You can compare this with a library metaphor that has been used to explain AM according to the record-keeping approach. However, after many years of AM-research it was concluded that AM is stored in a different manner, namely according to the constructionist approach, which often is initiated by memory cues. This paper explains these AM theories, surveys literature on existing augmented memory systems and describes our own work in this area. All this input is combined into eight design recommendations for future augmented memory systems.

Peripheral interaction: characteristics and considerations

In everyday life, we are able to perceive information and perform physical actions in the background or periphery of attention. Inspired by this observation, several researchers have studied interactive systems that display digital information in the periphery of attention. To broaden the scope of this research direction, a few recent studies have focused on interactive systems that can not only be perceived in the background but also enable users to physically interact with digital information in their periphery. Such peripheral interaction designs can support computing technology to fluently embed in and become a meaningful part of people’s everyday routines. With the increasing ubiquity of technology in our everyday environment, we believe that this direction is highly relevant nowadays. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of three case studies on peripheral interaction. These case studies involved the design and development of peripheral interactive systems and deployment of these systems in the real context of use for a number of weeks. Based on the insights gained through these case studies, we discuss generalized characteristics and considerations for peripheral interaction design and evaluation. The aim of the work presented in this paper is to support interaction design researchers and practitioners in anticipating and facilitating peripheral interaction with the designs they are evaluating or developing.

Investigating Privacy Attitudes and Behavior in Relation to Personalization

This article presents an experimental study of privacy-related attitudes and behaviors regarding a music recommender service based on two types of user modeling: personality traits and musical preferences. Contrary to prior expectations and attitudes reported by participants, personality traits are frequently disclosed to the system and other users, indicating that embedded modeling of user personality does not represent an acceptance barrier. Discrepancies between privacy attitudes and behaviors have been reported before in the context of e-commerce applications, but the corresponding studies could not exclude several conflicting hypotheses, such as participants expressing attitudes outside the context of specific privacy dilemmas and contact with researchers, which may have mitigated perceived privacy risks. Arguably, these are fundamental problems in empirical investigations into privacy that apply to most published works relating to privacy and user modeling. Measures to control these factors in this study are discussed, and methodological suggestions for future research are presented.

Making Sense of What Is Going on ‘Around’: Designing Environmental Awareness Information Displays

Picture this: it is 40,000 years ago, and you are an early Homo sapiens. You are standing on the savannah. Look around you. What do you see? No billboards, no traffic signs, no logos, and no text. You might see grassland, some trees, or a bank of clouds in the distance. You are in a kind of vast, unspoilt nature reserve. Are you feeling wonderfully relaxed yet? Don’t be mistaken. Unlike the woodland parks where you sometimes go walking of a Sunday, this is not a recreational environment. This is where you live. You must survive here, and the environment is full of information that helps you to do so. An animal you are going to hunt has left tracks in the sand. Are the berries on that tree edible or poisonous? And that birdsong: Does it mean there’s going to be a storm and winter is on its way? Or are the silly birds just singing for their own enjoyment? You can’t be sure: you have to interpret it all. And you are good at that. So good, that you have succeeded in surviving in this environment.

Tangible Computing in Everyday Life: Extending Current Frameworks for Tangible User Interfaces with Personal Objects

This paper describes an extension to Ullmer and Ishii’s TUI-categorization [41]. The reason for adding new categories is based on their omission of their associative TUIs and our work in this area of personal objects. The benefit of using personal objects instead of generic objects is that in the first instance users already have mental models or personal links between experiences, the related media and these objects. In addition, a Graspable or Tangible User Interface with personal objects can support existing media systems, instead of designing new ones that have to be learned by users.

Reconexp: a way to reduce the data loss of the experiencing sampling method

This paper presents Reconexp, a diary method supported by a distributed application, which partly runs on a mobile device and partly on a website, enabling us to survey user attitudes, experiences and requirements in field studies. Reconexp combines aspects of the Experience Sampling Method and the Day Reconstruction Method aiming to reduce data loss, improve data quality and reduce burden put upon participants. We discuss our first experiences of using this method in the context of a study of communication needs of working parents with young children.

Exploring peripheral interaction design for primary school teachers

This paper explores the concept of peripheral interactions; interactions with technology that take place in the background or periphery of the attention. We present two designs for a classroom setting. CawClock makes selected time frames audible in order to provide teachers with awareness of time. NoteLet is designed to support the teacher in observing childrens behavior, by enabling him or her to take pictures of the classroom through straightforward interactions on a bracelet. A qualitative, two-week exploration of both systems in a classroom revealed that the soundscapes of CawClock indeed shifted to the periphery of the attention and supported the teachers time awareness. The actions with NoteLet did not shift to the periphery. However, the tangible aspects of NoteLet seemed to facilitate the interaction to be quick and simple, which may indicate that it could shift to the periphery with more practice. Tangible interaction therefore seems a promising interaction style for this purpose.

Design and evaluation of an ambient display to support time management during meetings

An explorative research to investigate the opportunities of using light as a communication medium to provide peripheral information is presented. An innovative ambient display, using dynamic light patterns on the walls of the meeting room to support time management during meetings has been developed. Designed according to the principles of calm technology and information decoration, the system seeks for a balance between aesthetical and informational quality. Two prototypes were created and qualitative research methods are used to evaluate the concept and the efficacy of light in conveying information. The results confirm the value of our concept by showing an appreciation of the usefulness and a good level of comprehension of the users towards the system. The project led to insightful considerations on design guidelines and recommendations for further development of ambient displays to use light to convey abstract information in a subtle, unobtrusive way.

Personal souvenirs as ambient intelligent objects

Recollecting memories is an important everyday activity, which can be supported in an Ambient Intelligent environment. For optimal support cues are needed that make people reconstruct their memories. The cue category that is most suitable for an Ambient Intelligent environment concerns physical objects, more specifically souvenirs. This paper shows that personal souvenirs are suitable for usage in an Ambient Intelligent recollecting application.

Acting by hand: Informing interaction design for the periphery of people's attention

Interactions in and with the physical world have enabled us to perform everyday activities in the periphery of our attention. Even though digital technologies are becoming increasingly present in the everyday environment, interaction with these technologies usually requires peoples focused attention. In the realm of the vision of calm technology, we think that designing interactions with the digital world inspired by our peripheral interaction with the physical world, will enable digital technologies to better blend into our everyday lives. However, for such interaction design to be effective, a detailed understanding of the everyday periphery is required. In this paper, we therefore present a qualitative study on everyday activities that may take place in the periphery of the attention. We provide a broad range of examples of such everyday activities and cluster them to present the conditions under which they may be performed peripherally. Furthermore, we discuss how our findings may be relevant for the design of peripheral interactions with digital technologies, and present two conceptual designs that are based on our findings.