Tony Salvador

Methods & tools: Playacting and focus troupes:: theater techniques for creating quick, intense, immersive, and engaging focus group sessions

J Jeff Hawkins, the inventor of the PalmPilot, was said to have carried a small block of wood around in his shirt pocket as a prototype of the personal digital assistant his company was developing [6]. As various everyday situations arose, he would take out the block of wood and imagine how he would use the device. Hawkins was acting out the use of a new product within his everyday situations. His experiential context of use helped to frame and focus Hawkinss wants and needs, which in turn informed the design of the PalmPilot.

Engineering ethnography in the home

ABSTRACT Intel CorporationJF3-21O2111 NE 25th AvenueHillsboro,OR97124Tel: (503) 264-5766tony_salvador, jean_scholtz, doug_l_sorensen } @ccm.jf.intel.com To inform the design and development of domesticcomputing systems, we performed a pilot ethnographicstudy of the home. The resulting model of domesticactivity shows that the implicit design assumptions of thepersonal computer are inappropriate for the home. Ourmodel suggests that small, integrated, computationalappliances are a more appropriate domestic technologythan the monolithic PC. Keywords ethnography, home computing, ubiquitous computing UNDERSTANDING THE HOMEThe computer industry has a strong interest in sellingcomputer technology into the home. Yet there are fewsources of knowledge on how this technology fits into thehome. Venkatesh [3, 4] provides a valuable analysis ofhome computing diffusion trends. Kraut’s HomeNetproject [2] provides valuable quantitative data regardingInternet use in the home. However, in order to definefuture domestic technologies, we need a more completemodel of daily home life. Towards this end we ran a pilotethnographic study with ten families. During the course ofthis project we developed new data collection methods anda spatial, temporal and social model of the home.

Running and grimacing: the struggle for balance in mobile work

The current proliferation of mobile devices in computing, electronics and communications industries has begun to provide consumers and workers with types of experiences that once required being tethered to a particular piece of technology at a fixed location. Advertisers bombard us with images of executives reclining on sun drenched beaches, cheerfully pecking away at their laptops, or struting, like alpha males through airports checking their stock portfolios on PDAs and mobile phones.

Focus troupe: using drama to create common context for new product concept end-user evaluations

We offer a new technique for eliciting contextually relevant, personally experiential user feedback for products that do not yet exist. Too often customers and users are required to provide input on radically new product concepts with which, by definition, they have no direct experience. While traditional marketing techniques, e.g., focus groups and surveys, appear adequate for evaluating existing products with which customers have direct experience, these existing techniques offer only limited satisfaction for ev,aIuating new product concepts where there is no customer experience. Based on our experiences, we note that one primary reason for this limited utility is the variable use-contexts prevalent among the individual customers due to a product presentation format that cannot offer a common context, e.g., a foil set. Focus Troupe is a technique whereby dramatic vignettes are presented to an audience of potential customers in which the new product concept is featured merely as a prop or even as a dramatic element, but not as an existing piece of technology. The vignette casts familiar or common situations where the particulars differ based on the new invention, thereby contextually highlighting the new concept against a fruniliar <and common background. In our experience, the actual production of a Focus Troupe event is efficient and speedier than that of a more traditional focus group. The engaging presentation, the common background and no need for actud product concepts offers a unique methodology for eliciting relevant comments from otherwise njive customers about products that do not exist.

Practical considerations of context for context based systems: An example from an ethnographic case study of a man diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease

The meaning of context with respect to computational systems has been the focus of considerable discussion specifically as related to context aware and proactive computing. However, there are no reports of peoples direct, experiential understanding of the lived experience of context. As a result, there is a significant gap between theoretical approaches for understanding context and the actual practice of context, which is critical for the specification of systems. This paper reports the results of an ethnographic case study that illuminates the practical nature of context and highlights specific challenges for ubiquitous computing systems in general. We conclude that context is simultaneously more subtle, fluid and idiosyncratic than previously reported under theoretical approaches to understanding context. We further suggest implications for the design of computing systems based on these findings.

Designing technology for community appropriation

INTRODUCTION Computation is weaving itself into our daily fabric. All around us new devices, environments, and systems are opening themselves up for user adoption and in many cases adaptation, such as SMS messaging on cell phones. New and unexpected interactions with the immaterial have expanded the design territory to include people as designers, and Moran described design as a “negotiated social process”.[7] The design process now extends beyond the formulation of a computational artifact and onto how the user experiences an artifact. This mutual relationship has heightened the understanding of what we, as designers, should be designing for, but does not necessarily provide us with the tools and practices to design technology that is truly open for later appropriation. This seems even more challenging in the case of technology, which is specifically aimed at a whole community of users rather than an individual [5].

'This all together, Hon?' Ubicomp in non-office work environments

Ubiquitous computing technologies offer the promise of extending the benefits of computing to workers who do not spend their time at a desktop environment. In this paper, we review the results of an extended study of non-office workers across a variety of work domains, noting some key characteristics of their practices and environments, and examining some challenges to delivering on the ubicomp promise. Our research points to three important challenges that must be addressed, these include: (a) variability across work environments; (b) the need to align disparate, sometimes conflicting interests; and (c) the need to deal with what appear to be informal ways of creating and sharing knowledge. As will be discussed, while daunting, these challenges also point to specific areas of focus that might benefit the design and development of future ubicomp systems.

Design: no job too small

ABBTRACT This paper describes the efforts involved in the design of a novel Personal Information Manager (PIM) about the size of a credit card with a touch screen that fit neatly in one’s shirt pocket or the PCMCIA slot on a PC. The device had to support both viewing data as well as entering data This project at Intel offered human hctors engineers extraordinary freedom in tenms of functional design constraints, including no pre-existing operating system or pm-existing metaphor. Hovwwer, in terms of practical constraints, such as low power demands, extremely small screen size and low resolution, color and the inexperience of the engineering team worting with human fbctors Prof=onals, this project offered us a unique challenge. In the en~ ergonomic concerns, functionality concerns and navigation issues required a novel approach to the design of this hand-held computing appliance. Making decisions was additionally complicated as the novel hardware was being developed simultaneously. During desi~ we needed to produce innovative tests that would give valid results without using the actual hardware and we needed to explain at each step what we were doing and the input we would have for hardware ardor software decisions.

User requirements analysis for the home

INTRODUCTION Software companies are becoming increasingly concerned about producing and selling applications for the home. But what are those applications? How do we fmd out what is needed or desired in the home? How do we assess the usability and usefidness of applications designed for home users? This SIG will focus on home studies: how to do them, who to do them with, how this differs tlom similar studies in the business world?

Systematic creativity: a methodology for integrating user, market and engineering requirements for product definition, design and usability testing

The rate of emerging technological innovations has exceeded the rate at which individuals can assimilate new technologies into their lives. Yet, businesses continue a breakneck pace for the development of new technologies resulting in the creation of products based on a particular type of technology, i.e., technocentric product development, rather than on its utility and usability, i.e., user centric product development. One reason for this misplaced focus on technology rather than on the intended users, may be that few methodologies exist to genuinely incorporate the user in the product development cycle, which would otherwise more tightly link users’ requirements to product design and usability testing. This is especially the case for software user interface development. This paper identifies a framework of a discrete number of specific data classes fundamental to incorporating the user into product development.