Sukeshini A. Grandhi

P3 systems: putting the place back into social networks

The availability of technologies enables a new class of location-aware information systems that link people-to-people-to-geographical-places (P3 systems). P3 systems can strengthen the relationship between social networks and physical places. They can also help individuals leverage location information to make new social ties and coordinate interactions that reinforce existing ties. Using the P3 systems framework, we describe the design space for location-aware community systems and important socio-technical challenges and opportunities.

People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places: The P3 Framework for Location-Based Community Systems

In this paper we examine an emerging class of systems that link People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places; we call these P3-Systems. Through analyzing the literature, we have identified four major P3-System design techniques: People-Centered systems that use either absolute user location (e.g. Active Badge) or user proximity (e.g. Hocman) and Place-Centered systems based on either a representation of people’s use of physical spaces (e.g. ActiveMap) or on a matching virtual space that enables online interaction linked to physical location (e.g. Geonotes). In addition, each feature can be instantiated synchronously or asynchronously. The P3-System framework organizes existing systems into meaningful categories and structures the design space for an interesting new class of potentially context-aware systems. Our discussion of the framework suggests new ways of understanding and addressing the privacy concerns associated with location aware community system and outlines additional socio-technical challenges and opportunities.

Understanding naturalness and intuitiveness in gesture production: insights for touchless gestural interfaces

This paper explores how interaction with systems using touchless gestures can be made intuitive and natural. Analysis of 912 video clips of gesture production from a user study of 16 subjects communicating transitive actions (manipulation of objects with or without external tools) indicated that 1) dynamic pantomimic gestures where imagined tool/object is explicitly held are performed more intuitively and easily than gestures where a body part is used to represent the tool/object or compared to static hand poses and 2) gesturing while communicating the transitive action as how the user habitually performs the action (pantomimic action) is perceived to be easier and more natural than gesturing while communicating it as an instruction. These findings provide guidelines for the characteristics of gestures and user mental models one must consciously be concerned with when designing and implementing gesture vocabularies of touchless interaction.

Geographic `Place' and `Community Information' Preferences

People dynamically structure social interactions and activities at various locations in their environments in specialized types of places such as the office, home, coffee shop, museum and school. They also imbue various locations with personal meaning, creating group ‘hangouts’ and personally meaningful ‘places’. Mobile location-aware community systems can potentially utilize the existence of such ‘places’ to support the management of social information and interaction. However, acting effectively on this potential requires an understanding of how: (1) places and place-types relate to people’s desire for place-related awareness of and communication with others; and (2) what information people are willing to provide about themselves to enable place-related communication and awareness. We present here the findings from two qualitative studies, a survey of 509 individuals in New York, and a study of how mobility traces can be used to find people’s important places in an exploration of these questions. These studies highlight how people value and are willing to routinely provide information such as ratings, comments, event records relevant to a place, and when appropriate their location to enable services. They also suggest how place and place-type data could be used in conjunction with other information regarding people and places so that systems can be deployed that respect users’ People-to-People-to-Places data sharing preferences. We conclude with a discussion on how ‘place’ data can best be utilized to enable services when the systems in question are supported by a sophisticated computerized user-community social-geographical model.

Finding your way with CampusWiki: a location-aware wiki

Wikis provide a simple and unique approach to collaborative authoring, allowing any member of the community to contribute new, or change existing information. However, Wikis are typically disconnected from the physical context of users who are utilizing or creating content, resulting in suboptimal support for geographic communities. In addition, geographic communities might find the highly skewed generation of content by a few individuals problematic. Here we present research into addressing these challenges through location-awareness and lightweight user content rating mechanisms. We describe one such location-aware Wiki, CampusWiki and initial results from a field study demonstrating the value of location-linked content and the rating approach. We conclude with a discussion of design implications.

Impression Management Struggles in Online Dating

Online dating systems are now widely used to search for romance and yet there is little research on how people use these systems to manage their impressions with potential romantic partners. To address this issue we conducted an interview study of 41 online dating users, revealing that-contrary to prior work-online daters largely do not want to intentionally deceive their online dating partners because they think such lies would quickly be discovered face-to-face. Nevertheless, bad first dates were a norm rather than an exception for this studys participants. In this paper we present various frustrations online daters associate with conveying and forming impressions of potential romantic partners before meeting face-to-face. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design of online dating systems.

The doing of doing stuff: understanding the coordination of social group-activities

This paper explores how the adoption of mobile and social computing technologies has impacted upon the way in which we coordinate social group-activities. We present a diary study of 36 individuals that provides an overview of how group coordination is currently performed as well as the challenges people face. Our findings highlight that people primarily use open-channel communication tools (e.g., text messaging, phone calls, email) to coordinate because the alternatives are seen as either disrupting or curbing to the natural conversational processes. Yet the use of open-channel tools often results in conversational overload and a significant disparity of work between coordinating individuals. This in turn often leads to a sense of frustration and confusion about coordination details. We discuss how the findings argue for a significant shift in our thinking about the design of coordination support systems.

Telling calls: facilitating mobile phone conversation grounding and management

Current cell phone designs are limited by the information a caller can provide to the receiver at the time of a call. As a result callers are handicapped in effectively negotiating interaction commitment from the receiver, and perhaps more importantly, receivers are unable to make informed call handling decisions. To examine the nature of this information gap we 1) developed Telling Calls, a mobile phone application which allows users to provide and receive information such as what the call is about and the circumstances of the caller under which it is being made, and 2) conducted a qualitative field study (36 users) and a quantitative field study (30 users) of Telling Calls use. Together these studies provide insights on how additional caller generated information shared at the time of call handling effectively improves the process of negotiating interaction commitment, and establishing common ground.

Knock, knock! who's there? Putting the user in control of managing interruptions

The abundance of communication technology, such as the omnipresence of cell phones, has not only increased our ability to reach people anytime anywhere, but also the likelihood of being interrupted. As a result, there is value in understanding how to design technology so that gains are realized from desired interruptions, while the losses from unwanted interruptions are minimized. This paper presents the findings of two complementary field studies, one quantitative and the other qualitative, exploring how the provision of additional incoming cell phone call information impacts people?s interruption decision making. These studies were enabled by, Telling Calls, a research application built to enable users to provide and receive information such as what the call is about and the caller?s circumstances. The qualitative study showed how the additional call information helps people make informed call handling decisions and acts as an aid to effective conversation. The quantitative study elucidated these findings and showed that reducing the uncertainty about the nature of an incoming call improves people?s ability to predict the value of an interruption. By combining these diverse research approaches: (1) theory instantiation through tool building; (2) context-aware surveys; and (3) semi-structured interviews, we were able to gain unique insights into the nature of interruption management in the wild, and related design implications. Presents 2 field studies of people?s interruption handling behavior in cell phones.Explores the value of providing additional caller and call related information.Having additional information enables informed call handling decisions.Provides implications for design of interpersonal interruption management tools.

To answer or not to answer: that is the question for cell phone users

People are constantly making decisions to answer or ignore cell phone calls based on inferences derived from partial information about the incoming call. To gain an understanding of this information deficit we conducted a survey study of cell phone call handling practices. The results highlight the type and extent of information desired about incoming cell phone calls. It also shows that desired information is largely unknown and often misattributed by the receiver. Our findings can be used by designers to prioritize the presentation of additional types of call related information on cell phone displays, and in so doing, empower users to make informed call handling decisions.