Maaret Posti

Unexpected journeys with the HOBBIT: the design and evaluation of an asocial hiking app

In the age of mobile communications and social media, users are connected to interact with other people, and often obliged to be socially active as technology drives to connect us. In this paper, we harness the technology for the opposite use: helping people to avoid company instead of encouraging interaction. We have developed the concept of an asocial hiking application (app), in which users can generate routes that avoid meeting other people. We developed the concept based on user feedback data derived from an online survey (n=157) and two focus groups, and created a tool that generates solitary hiking routes based on OpenStreetMap data and additional information from the web. In addition, to make the application react to dynamic changes in the environment, we developed a mobile application prototype that scans Wi-Fi signals to detect other hikers nearby and warn of their approach. The prototype was tested and evaluated with 8 hikers in-the-wild. In addition to the concept design and the functional prototype, we present findings on peoples, especially hikers, need for solitude, and introduce user feedback from each stage of the prototype design process as well as design recommendations for an asocial navigation application.

Design and evaluation of mobile phonebook application with stereoscopic 3D user interface

During recent years, stereoscopic 3D (S3D) mobile devices have entered the mass markets. Yet, mobile S3D user experience (UX) design has not been widely studied, and stereoscopy in todays products is used for purely visual design, whilst the potential for holistic UX has been neglected. In this work-in-progress paper we introduce the design, implementation and preliminary evaluation of a mobile S3D phonebook application, where stereoscopy was used to augment the 2D user interface (UI) design to provide information related to the time when the last call with each phonebook contact was made.

Clearing the virtual window: connecting two locations with interactive public displays

Public displays offer the possibility to open a virtual window to another place by showing a live video feed from a remote location. In this paper, we describe our research investigating connecting two spaces with pervasive displays, where the ability to see through the virtual window was user controlled. The set-up was designed to resemble a frozen window, where the user was able to melt the surface using gesture input. We organized a four day field study with four alternating designs to evaluate our system, and collected feedback from 14 users through online surveys and focus groups. Our salient findings reveal that Ice Window was perceived as fun and interesting, and it has potential for facilitate awareness and informal ways of collaboration not only between the two locations, but also at one side of the display. People were most comfortable with a design that implemented two-sided melting of the ice. This was perceived as best able to indicate communication attempts between the two locations whilst respecting privacy.

How to Use 3D in Stereoscopic Mobile User Interfaces: Study on Initial User Perceptions

So far, little research has been devoted to the user centric design of mobile stereoscopic 3D user interfaces (UIs). In this paper, we focus on charting peoples perceptions and suggestions on the purposes for which stereoscopic 3D (S3D) user interface designs could be used in typical mobile phone applications. For this, we conducted two user studies (n=33; n=27) charting initial user perceptions around four mobile S3D applications. The findings reveal that most commonly the stereoscopic effect was perceived to be used for visualizing contextually relevant or additional information related to a content item, users preferences, and grouping or selecting items.

City landmark as an interactive installation: experiences with stone, water and public space

In this paper, we describe our demonstration utilizing an urban landmark, a monument in a city center, for interaction. The City Mouse is an interactive media installation, where the participants rotate a 3D model of the Earth presented on a screen by rolling a large stone ball resting on a water fountain in a stone slab. During a public trial, approximately a hundred people interacted with the system. We demonstrate how an existing landmark in urban spaces can be used in an interactive experience, and report the experiences with the installation. We present how the communal ownership, associations and existing practices were connected to the successful design of the media installation.

Let me catch this!: experiencing interactive 3D cinema through collecting content with a mobile phone

The entertainment industry is going through a transformation, and technology development is affecting how we can enjoy and interact with the entertainment media content in new ways. In our work, we explore how to enable interaction with content in the context of 3D cinemas. This allows viewers to use their mobile phone to retrieve, for example, information on the artist of the soundtrack currently playing or a discount coupon on the watch the main actor is wearing. We are particularly interested in the user experience of the interactive 3D cinema concept, and how different interactive elements and interaction techniques are perceived. We report on the development of a prototype application utilizing smart phones and on an evaluation in a cinema context with 20 participants. Results emphasize that designing for interactive cinema experiences should drive for holistic and positive user experiences. Interactive content should be tied together with the actual video content, but integrated into contexts where it does not conflict with the immersive experience with the movie.

Investigating mobile stereoscopic 3D touchscreen interaction

3D output is no longer limited to large screens in cinemas or living rooms. Nowadays more and more mobile devices are equipped with autostereoscopic 3D (S3D) touchscreens. As a consequence interaction with 3D content now also happens whilst users are on the move. In this paper we carried out a user study with 27 participants to assess how mobile interaction, i.e. whilst walking, with mobile S3D devices, differs from interaction with 2D mobile touchscreens. We investigate the difference in touch accuracy between 2D touchscreens and mobile S3D touchscreens and evaluate the minimum touch target size for mobile S3D touchscreens. The contributions of this paper are twofold: Firstly, we found the increase in minimum touch target size caused by walking was larger for a mobile S3D UI than for a 2D UI. Secondly, we present touch target sizes and aspect ratios required for reliable user interaction in each case. Additionally we examined differences in the angle at which users held the mobile S3D device compared to a 2D mobile device. We found that mobile S3D caused users to hold the device at a different angle when walking, compared to the 2D case. This first study of its kind provides valuable information to developers of the next generation of UIs and applications for mobile S3D displays and devices.

Design, implementation and evaluation of an autostereoscopic 3D mobile phonebook

Mobile stereoscopic 3D (S3D) user experience (UX) design has not yet been widely studied. Stereoscopy in todays products is used for visual design purposes, whilst the potential for holistic interaction design and utilitarian aspects have been neglected. In this paper we introduce the design, implementation and evaluation of a mobile S3D phonebook application. In the application stereoscopy was used to augment the 2D user interface (UI) design to provide information related to the time when the last call with each phonebook contact was made. We describe the results of the pilot study charting the design directions, laboratory study of first impressions, and results of a field trial, where 21 participants used the application for a few days. The S3D UI design provoked first impressions related to entertainment and 2D UI to practical qualities, whereas the field study showed that our S3D phonebook design successfully demonstrated that utilitarian value can be incorporated to the design.

Early perceptions of an augmented home

In this paper, we focus on charting future ubiquitous computing use cases utilizing mixed reality (MR) in domestic environments, which has so far been an unexplored domain for MR. We describe our early user research, where during one week participants from 12 households were asked to brainstorm and assess their perceptions of imaginary mixed reality in their homes. During the one-week period this resulted in 167 user generated concept ideas. We focus on the thematic findings that emerged from the collected material, and describe how people most often related the potential of MR concepts with applications related to wellbeing, home-related information, communication and entertainment.

Mobile photo sharing through collaborative space in stereoscopic 3D

Mobile user interfaces (UIs) utilizing stereoscopic 3D have so far been driven predominantly by visual design, and when interaction design has been considered, the focus has been on single user use cases. In this paper, we introduce a novel way to utilize stereoscopy in a mobile user interface in a collaborative task. We define a shared space, appearing below the screen level, which is used in a collaborative task of sharing mobile phone photos. Two users are able to share content by moving items between the private layer, at zero parallax, and shared layer, at positive parallax. We developed the application through an iterative design process including two user studies (n=27, n=19). We report positive evaluation results especially in regard of the utilitarian aspects of the UI design.