Niko Kiukkonen

User experience of social ad hoc networking: findings from a large-scale field trial of TWIN

Modern mobile phones have the capability to detect proximity of other users and offer means to communicate and share data ad hoc with the people in the proximity. TWIN is an ad hoc social networking system which offers applications for social presence, mobile multimedia sharing and ad hoc community-based communication. In this paper we present the results of a large-scale user study of TWIN. In this field study, 250 study participants used TWIN for nine weeks. Our aim was to investigate the user experience of social proximity-based ad hoc communication. We found that the users felt TWIN to be more fun and entertaining than a useful tool for achieving pre-defined goals. Furthermore, users appreciated the possibility to find and chat with both familiar and unfamiliar persons nearby. Privacy concerns did not rise as a significant issue in user experience. We argue that a system like TWIN has the potential of becoming a new social enabler in peoples everyday lives.

People-centric mobile sensing with a pragmatic twist: from behavioral data points to active user involvement

Mobile phones have recently been used to collect largescale continuous data about human behavior. This people centric sensing paradigm is useful not only from a scientific point of view: Contextual user data has pragmatic value, too. Individuals whose data is collected in such long-term people centric sensing projects can be engaged in user centric design activities aiming to generate data driven services that benefit the end user. This paper demonstrates the value of such user centric approach. In a two-stage approach, we analyse mobile phone data to extract mobile phone usage c ategories. We then go on to interview the participants concerning their perceptions toward context-aware services. The two sta ges, combined as we present here, offer a clear value in ter ms of provi ding complementary insights, both to researchers and users, about the feasibility of and the expectations about personalized mobile services.