Mikael Anneroth

The human perspective of the wireless world

The Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF) is a global academic and industry forum, which is contributing to the visions of future wireless communications and is identifying research topics on which to build the vision. The next two decades promises us almost unimaginable communication capabilities; the technology can deliver almost anything we want it to, but the key to success is understanding what capabilities people will find valuable, and how to simply access those capabilities. The WWRF is putting the user at the centre of its visions by identifying research, which uncovers the functionality that people will value in the future. These research topics fall into three areas; understanding the user, by studying human behaviour and needs, the development of next generation technologies becomes user requirements driven rather than technology lead; new generic application elements, in which technologies closely associated with the understanding of the user, such as virtual reality, are identified for research; and new interaction techniques, which allow for intuitive interaction between humans and the terminals and underlying network services. Studying the user, especially in these research areas, is the only way to ensure that the future wireless world meets and exceeds the expectations of people in the coming decades.

Providing proper affordances when transferring source metaphors from information appliances to a 3G mobile multipurpose handset

The idea of merging different information appliances, each tailored to fit a specific task, into a multipurpose 3G mobile handset has become an interesting research area. This paper describes what considerations must be met from an efficiency point of view when designing a multipurpose handset concept including, e.g., camera functionality. The lessons learned when trading well-known previously acquired source metaphors for the “computer metaphor” was investigated in a small usability evaluation with 14 users, evaluating a multipurpose prototype. High task accuracy (effectiveness) was obtained (72% pass), but the efficiency with which the tasks were performed compared to using dedicated information appliances was low. Leaving out well-known affordances effectively prevented transfer of previously acquired source metaphors, which resulted in lack of feedback, inconsistency and errors. In order to validate usability, a combination of both objective and subjective metrics has to be used.

HCI and UN's Sustainable Development Goals: Responsibilities, Barriers and Opportunities

Despite increasing interest, Sustainable HCI has been critiqued for doing too little, and perhaps also at times for doing the wrong things. Still, a field like Human-Computer Interaction should aim at being part of transforming our society into a more sustainable one. But how do we do that, and, what are we aiming for? With this workshop, we propose that HCI should start working with the new global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that were formally adopted by the UN in September 2015. How can Sustainable HCI be inspired by, and contribute to these goals? What should we in the field of HCI do more of, and what should we perhaps do less of? In what areas should we form partnerships in order to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and with whom should we partner?