Everyday simplicity - The Implications of Everyday Tasks For Ubiquitous Computing Applications by Florian Resatsch

EVERYDAY SIMPLICITY The Implications of Everyday Tasks For Ubiquitous Computing Applications

AMCIS 2007Denver, Colorado, USA

Florian Resatsch

Institute of Electronic Business at the University of Arts Berlin

Structure

Structure

1. Current Ubiquitous Computing Studies

2. Why Everyday Tasks & Everyday Simplicity?

3. Design Principles of Everyday Tasks

4. Case Study Easymeeting and Evaluation

5. Conclusions


Structure

Structure





5. Conclusions


Structure

Research & Case Studies in Ubiquitous Computing

• We quickly started with Near Field Communication (NFC) as a main enabler for Ubiquitous Computing

• The mobile phone can be perfectly used as a „browser“ for RFID and real life data on it

• Mobile phones are everyday items• New Nokia phones integrate NFC capabilities • Similar to high frequency RFID tags,

NFC works on a 13.56 MHz frequency • Our case studys mostly use RFID or derivates

for consumer applications

(Example phone: Nokia 6131)


Structure

Case Study 1 – Mobile Prosumer

• Display of relevant product information on the mobile phone.

• Modular and personalised information service at the point of sale

• Real-time monitoring of consumer behaviour

• Feedback channel producer and Retailer (CRM)

5


Structure

Case Study – The Mobile Sales Assistant (MSA)

NFC/EPCISPrototype

Supports sales assistants at the point of sale

May also be for use to customers

Artifact difficult to built because of ONS/EPCIS

“Let me check....”

“Do you have these jeans

in size 28?”

6


Structure

Case Study – News on the go

Contactless Competence Center

7

Project

Location

User

Tag

Handelsblatt

ContentHandelsblattInfo Tag

NFC enabledmobile Phone

HTTP requestwith tag UID

Handelsblattcontent

API/RSS

TOUCH


Structure

Case Study – bluespot MAP

8

Picture copyright © Wall AG 2008


Structure

Case Study - Currently running in Frankfurt Germany

• NFC Ticketing Service (Public Transport System)• First large scale NFC user test in Europe

( > 300 Participants)• Methodology: Monthly online survey (duration: 3

months)• Questionnaire / Evaluation on 7 topics

Picture copyright © RMV 2008


Structure

Research Setup

Learnings from several smaller case studies

Mapping of hypotheses on large case studies -> Evaluation according learnings- Pilot studies

MobileProsumer

RMV

Retail

ÖPNV

IntegratedUbicompSystemPublicSpace

Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

Case 5…

easymeeting


Structure

Structure





5. Conclusions


Structure

What are everyday tasks and why are they important?

• Everyday activities are conceptually simple

• Routine operations performed on a daily basis – eating, meeting with friends

• Structure of everyday activities minimizes

planning and mental computation

• An everyday task is rather boring, so we want to get it over with as quickly as possible (Examples: Buying tickets for public transport, payment at supermarket)

• An everyday task must therefore have either few choices at any point

• Everyday tasks are an important area for

Ubiquitous Computing (Support people)

(Sources: Maeda 2007, Norman 2005, Norman 1988)

Imagesource: forum.stanford.edu/.../photos/ng_robotplate.jpg

Robot learns to grasp everyday chores


Structure

Example: Decision Trees as Starting Point (Ice cream)

a1

a2

a3

a4

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

b

Shallow decision tree Narrow decision tree

Firstdecision

Furtherchoices

1 2

a exit

exit

exit

exit

exit

(Norman 1999)


Structure

Structure


2. Why Everyday Tasks?



5. Conclusions


Structure

Ubicomp - Design Set 1

Norman states classic design principles that make everyday design understandable (Norman, 1988).

• Visibility: The user can immediately tell the state of the device and the alternatives for action.

• Conceptual model: Consistency in the presentation of operations and a coherent system image.

• Mappings: The relationship between system state and what is visible, between controls and their effects, and between actions and actual results must be clear and easy to determine.

• Feedback: Full and continuous feedback about every action.


Structure

Ubicomp – Design Set 2

Dey states three features of a context-aware application (Dey, 2001):• Presentation of information and services• automatic execution of a service • tagging of context to information to support later retrieval

www3.sympatico.ca/spacesbyrohan/context.html


Structure

Ubicomp – Design Set 3

Marc Langheinrich stated four principles for use in Ubicompp environments (Langheinrich, 2002):

• Notice: A Ubicompp environment needs mechanisms to declare collection practices, but also efficient ways to communicate these to the user.

• Choice and consent: In order to give users a true choice, we need to provide a selection mechanism so that users can indicate which services they prefer.

• Proximity and locality: The system should support mechanisms to encode and use locality information for collected data that can enforce access restrictions.

• Access and recourse: The system needs to provide a way for users to access their personal information in a simple way through standardized interfaces. Users should be informed about the usage of their data once it is stored […].


Structure

Combined to Ubicomp Design – Criteria Sets

Criteria Set 1: Everyday design(Norman, 1988)

Criteria Set 2: Context-awareness(Dey, 2001)

Criteria Set 3: Ubicomp principles(Langheinrich, 2002)

UbicompApplication

Further design criteria on information system design and infrastructure may apply (e.g. Fast response)


Structure

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5. Conclusions


Structure

Paper Case Study -> „easymeeting“?

• Easymeeting is a NFC prototype and case

study that was conducted in 2006/2007

• Simple NFC meeting room management

• Emphasis on unobtrusive use of

technology since meetings have a personal and social character

• Purpose of the case study was to show the

feasibility of developing everyday task Ubicomp applications and…

• to research if certain design criteria can be incorporated and evaluate the system


Structure

Prototype and location in meeting room (Organization 1)


Structure

The paper prototype


Structure

Example: Refill coffee

Touch & receive Coffee


Structure


Structure


Structure

Nokia 6131NFC

Discover tagPerform action according stored ID

SMS2EMail GatewayConvert incoming SMS to email

and forward to predefined adress

Microsoft Exchange

ServerReceive e-Mail on Server and process rule

E-MailClient

WebbrowserReceive e-Mail or SMS on local clientand webbrowser (ticketing)

Initiate real world process

User interaction

Technical process

User interaction

Mobilephone

IT architecture overview


Structure

Evaluation

Research framework Quantitative/qualitative survey

Method of data collection Personal interview with questionnaire

Period December 19th 2006 to February 6th 2007

Measuring method Quantitative: Interval 5-item-scale (Mostly UTAUT* Items)Qualitative: Questionnaire survey

Universe Two organizations with 25 employees (O1) up to 300 employees (O2)

Sample type Random

Sample number n=37 with n1=22 (O1) and n2=15 (O2)*(Venkatesh 2004)


Structure

Evaluation – Highlights (Quantitative)

• Only 2.7% considered themselves to be very knowledgeable about RFID/NFC, while the majority of 24.3% knew nothing about RFID/NFC and 21.6% only very little.

• On performance expectancy, 32.4% found easymeeting very useful for

their work (strongly agree).

• Attitude toward the technology was also positive, with 35.1% strongly agreed to the statement “I like more applications such as easymeeting”

• Facilitating conditions: Although most of the participants rated their knowledge of RFID/NFC on a scale from 1 = none at all to 3 = neutral, 78% felt capable of using the application (see next slide). This shows that knowledge on RFID/NFC is unnecessary for the usage of an Ubicomp application but also implies that the used design criteria enforced simplicity.


Structure

Evaluation


Structure

Evaluation – Highlights (Quantitative)

• Ten participants had problems with the OK button on the mobile phone and others struggled with the internal Nokia screensaver.

• The prototype was attached to the wall in O1. Some said it would be better to place the tags on the table instead of the wall, because it is less obtrusive. Placing it on the table avoids unnecessary walking around during meetings.

• The built-in haptic feedback of the phone was considered helpful in determining visibility and feedback.

• Interestingly in O2 the main argument against future usage, were the previously introduced Blackberry handsets without NFC

• The main problem for most users was the location of the reader and

antenna within the phone.


Structure

Structure





5. Conclusions


Structure

Conclusions

• It is very easy to set up a cheap, simple, grassroots Ubicomp information system with currently available standard components.

• We believe that such simple applications show a clear benefit to the

user and lead to further adoption of Ubicomp.

• The system has had no implications for the privacy concerns of end-users (Business Setting -> good opportunity)

• The design criteria obviously supported the development of the application. But: Future research needs to evaluate more specific and structured design principles in order to improve convenience of Ubicomp applications and the correlation of one design criteria to another.

• In particular, the simplicity of everyday tasks affords an opportunity to

start a grassroots initiative in ”tagging” the world around us.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. John Dewey

ContactFlorian [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Economy & Finance

Everyday simplicity - The Implications of Everyday Tasks For Ubiquitous Computing Applications by Florian Resatsch