Nirmal Patel

Quickdraw: the impact of mobility and on-body placement on device access time

We investigate the effect of placement and user mobility on the time required to access an on-body interface. In our study, a wrist-mounted system was significantly faster to access than a device stored in the pocket or mounted on the hip. In the latter two conditions, 78% of the time it took to access the device was spent retrieving the device from its holder. As mobile devices are beginning to include peripherals (for example, Bluetooth headsets and watches connected to a mobile phone stored in the pocket), these results may help guide interface designers with respect to distributing functions across the body between peripherals.

Mobiphos: a collocated-synchronous mobile photo sharing application

People use photographs for numerous reasons with one of the most common uses of both analog and digital photographs is as an artifact to share and discuss with others. While the practice of photo sharing has been thoroughly examined in the HCI community, there is currently very little research on easily capturing and sharing content within groups of collocated mobile users. In this paper we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a mobile photo sharing application, Mobiphos, that gives a group of collocated users the ability to capture and simultaneously share photos in real-time with each other.

Mobiphos: A study of user engagement with a mobile collocated-synchronous photo sharing application

Photographs have always been artifacts for creating memories and engaging in storytelling activities with others. To date there has been much research in the HCI community towards sharing of both analog and digital photographs. With recent advances in network technology further research has been done with photos being shared almost immediately after capture. However, most of the research has focused on synchronous sharing with groups of distributed users and little has been done to focus on how synchronous capture and sharing could benefit a group of collocated mobile users. To help start exploration in this area we have created Mobiphos. In this article we present how synchronous capture and sharing affects how groups of mobile, collocated users engage with their environment and each other while touring a city. We also discuss the design guidelines of Mobiphos and the implications for future photoware for the mobile, collocated context.

Dancing in the Streets: The design and evaluation of a wearable health game

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic, with childhood obesity currently ranking as one of the biggest health challenges facing the United States today. In this project we introduce a mobile and wearable health video game, Dancing in the Streets (DITS). DITS uses two wireless, 3-axis accelerometers as input to a social, mobile, phone-based dancing game played by groups of collocated users. DITS was evaluated by 50 American high school students from two different inner-city public high schools. Each student was trained how to use the system and had the opportunity to play through two different songs. We collected usability and demographic data from the participants. In this paper, we present the design of the system and the results of our evaluation.

KeyMenu: a keyboard based hierarchical menu

KeyMenu is a keyboard based hierarchical menu system intended for use on a wearable computer. It is designed for use in conjunction with the Twiddler one–handed wearable keyboard. Unlike traditional menus and shortcut keys, our system employs a one–to–one mapping between buttons on the keyboard and menu items. With the addition of a popup menu interaction technique, the KeyMenu design consistently supports both novice and expert users.

Designing and evaluating mobile systems for collocated group use

With the proliferation of mobile devices it has become common to see groups of users working or playing together using multiple mobile devices. While much effort is exerted to ensure that interaction with a mobile device is useful for each individual user, less effort has gone into considering how to design and evaluate mobile interfaces and platforms for group use. Recent improvements in the interaction, computing, connectivity and general flexibility of mobile devices make them an ideal, yet underutilized, platform for group level interaction. Our goal with this workshop is to bring together researchers who have started to investigate the collocated group use of mobile devices and to shed light on the challenges of designing and evaluating mobile collocated group experiences.

A study of cultural effects on mobile-collocated group photo sharing

International and intercultural collaborations provide a unique opportunity to explore cultural differences in the usage and appropriation of a technology. Mobile photo capture and sharing has been growing in popularity in the Western world but nowhere has the practice been as eagerly adopted as in South Korea. In this paper we present an evaluation of a mobile-collocated photo sharing technology probe designed to determine the ways in which photo capture and sharing can effect and enhance face-to-face interaction for pre-existing social groups. We explore the interaction of culture and automatic, real-time photo capture and sharing on groups of friends engaging in a walking tour. We assemble a multicultural research team to better understand our observations and isolate cultural and technological artifacts. We relate our findings to prior work in the area to show that culture can have as much, if not more, impact on group usage of a technology than the technical capabilities of a system.

Many tabs make a light board

My research examines challenges inherent in the design of mobile groupware systems. For my thesis work I am designing interfaces and interaction techniques that can be used to augment face-to-face communication within groups of collocated mobile users. In my initial research, which explored collocated mobile photo capture and sharing, I uncovered three fundamental challenges to designing mobile groupware. In this paper I discuss these challenges as well as my proposed research agenda to addresses the challenges.