No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
"It's on my other computer!": Computing with multiple devices
Abstract
The number of computing devices that people use is growing. To gain a better understanding of why and how people use multiple devices, we interviewed 27 people from academia and industry. From these interviews we distill four primary findings. First, associating a user's activities with a particular device is problematic for multiple device users because many activities span multiple devices. Second, device use varies by user and circumstance; users assign different roles to devices both by choice and by constraint. Third, users in industry want to separate work and personal activities across work and personal devices, but they have difficulty doing so in practice Finally, users employ a variety of techniques for accessing information across devices, but there is room for improvement: participants reported managing information across their devices as the most challenging aspect of using multiple devices. We suggest opportunities to improve the user experience by focusing on the user rather than the applications and devices; making devices aware of their roles; and providing lighter-weight methods for transferring information, including synchronization services that engender more trust from users.
... Prior work has also investigated novel interactions across multiple devices. Studies have revealed that users tended to allocate a complex task across multiple devices based on device form factors and functionalities [16,79]. For example, Duet demonstrates various intriguing interactions, such as cross-device pinch gestures and touches made with a finger knuckle or a fingertip enabled by fusing sensor input across a watch and a phone [11]. ...
... The collected movements and gesture types for each configuration are reported in Table 1. The collected size of the times-series data tuple is 16,24,16,24, and 16 for the configurations C1-C5, respectively, excluding the timestamp. The dataset is publicly available 1 . ...
... The collected movements and gesture types for each configuration are reported in Table 1. The collected size of the times-series data tuple is 16,24,16,24, and 16 for the configurations C1-C5, respectively, excluding the timestamp. The dataset is publicly available 1 . ...
Wearable devices allow quick and convenient interactions for controlling mobile computers. However, these interactions are often device-dependent, and users cannot control devices in a way they are familiar with if they do not wear the same wearable device. This paper proposes a new method, UnifiedSense, to enable device-dependent gestures even when the device that detects such gestures is missing by utilizing sensors on other wearable devices. UnifiedSense achieves this without explicit gesture training for different devices, by training its recognition model while users naturally perform gestures. The recognizer uses the gestures detected on the primary device (i.e., a device that reliably detects gestures) as labels for training samples and collects sensor data from all other available devices on the user. We conducted a technical evaluation with data collected from 15 participants with four types of wearable devices. It showed that UnifiedSense could correctly recognize 5 gestures (5 gestures × 5 configurations) with an accuracy of 90.9% (SD = 1.9%) without the primary device present.
... Wireless techniques for data transfer require a joint network and a multi-step connection process [37]. Other tools for data transfer, which claim to be simple and fast, are typically limited to a specific ecosystem or cloud-based, which require a complex authentication process and raise privacy concerns among users [10]. Thus, despite the variety of available methods, transferring data between devices remains a complex process for many users [5,10]. ...
... Other tools for data transfer, which claim to be simple and fast, are typically limited to a specific ecosystem or cloud-based, which require a complex authentication process and raise privacy concerns among users [10]. Thus, despite the variety of available methods, transferring data between devices remains a complex process for many users [5,10]. This suggests that established interaction techniques for cross-device data transfer are not understood immediately and intuitively by users. ...
... When comparing the situations, participants ranked the objects quite similarly in all of them. In the overall ranking, most participants preferred Phone (20), followed by Card (10) and Watch (7). The less preferred objects were Key (6), Pen (4), and Tissue (1). ...
People interact with a multitude of personal digital devices and infrastructural hardware every day. Oftentimes, they need to transfer data from one device to another. In many cases this process is still surprisingly cumbersome, requiring additional, non-intuitive steps, such as authentication, device pairing, or network setup. Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) allow for quick and intuitive physical interaction with digital data. Therefore, they offer a promising design space towards more natural interaction techniques for cross-device data transfer. In a workshop and an elicitation study, we investigated different form factors and interaction techniques using six everyday objects in three different situations. We found that designing effective tangibles requires consideration of various factors which strongly depend on the target group and intended use case.
... For example, Oulasvirta et al. [54] highlight information workers' challenges of synchronizing content across devices. This echoes Dearman et al. 's finding [22] that data access is challenging to manage with multiple devices. Other studies further unpack use-cases and practices, such as the spectrum of sequential-parallel and related-unrelated use of multiple devices, and how users choose between them [41]. ...
... Multiple studies attempted to gain such broader view of people's workflows when working with multiple devices, including understanding multi-device utilisation [17,18,22,39,54] and challenges [55], in both individual [30,61] and collaborative settings [37,68]. Within this body of informative work, a number of previous studies [22,54,61] [22] studied researchers in academia and industry, providing insights on the challenges for people needing to manage and access data across multiple devices. ...
... Multiple studies attempted to gain such broader view of people's workflows when working with multiple devices, including understanding multi-device utilisation [17,18,22,39,54] and challenges [55], in both individual [30,61] and collaborative settings [37,68]. Within this body of informative work, a number of previous studies [22,54,61] [22] studied researchers in academia and industry, providing insights on the challenges for people needing to manage and access data across multiple devices. Santosa et al. [61] identified the roles that different devices can play in a field study from 2013. ...
To better ground technical (systems) investigation and interaction design of cross-device experiences, we contribute an in-depth survey of existing multi-device practices, including fragmented workflows across devices and the way people physically organize and configure their workspaces to support such activity. Further, this survey documents a historically significant moment of transition to a new future of remote work, an existing trend dramatically accelerated by the abrupt switch to work-from-home (and having to contend with the demands of home-at-work) during the COVID-19 pandemic. We surveyed 97 participants, and collected photographs of home setups and open-ended answers to 50 questions categorized in 5 themes. We characterize the wide range of multi-device physical configurations and identify five usage patterns, including: partitioning tasks, integrating multi-device usage, cloning tasks to other devices, expanding tasks and inputs to multiple devices, and migrating between devices. Our analysis also sheds light on the benefits and challenges people face when their workflow is fragmented across multiple devices. These insights have implications for the design of multi-device experiences that support people's fragmented workflows.
... Regarding work improvement, effectiveness and efficiency are the most commonly mentioned topics. The usage of these concepts is in line with each other in terms of the use contexts: efficiency and effectiveness of the tools or interfaces [3,19,61,91], of work or task [25,46,53,56,79], and of individual employees or teams concerning tool usage [29,53]. Productivity is discussed concerning tool usage at work. ...
... The approaches that they choose are varied. They aim to improve the design of the work tools by supporting positive experiences at work [76,107], balancing business and user needs [4,18,42,76], exploring the mechanisms of a specific negative experience [10,35], generating a baseline for the design process by providing recommendations, suggestions, guidelines and/or new approaches [25,62,82,101,102], generating tool evaluation methods [99], generating a tool to support the design process [45,88], and analyzing user behavior [14,43]. ...
... System controllers [88] Support staff [9] Design and development UX designers [6,91] Designers [62] Engineers [25,62,78] Analysts [25,35,46,88] Software developers [35] Managers [9,35,88] Administrators [9,27] Artistic disciplines Set construction artists [53] Musicians [19,71] Photographers [71] Writers [71] Researchers Faculty members [25,101] Graduate students [25,101] Geologists [17] Scientists [9] Research staff [25,102] ...
User experience (UX) research has been criticized for focusing on leisure contexts and overlooking the work contexts. Moreover, researchers have been drawing attention to how UX at work differs from UX in leisure contexts, requiring development of domain specific knowledge. Inspired by these discussions, our motivation is to see the current state of UX at work research. Based on the systematic review of 52 papers, our results revealed that UX at work research is still immature. It is run by dichotomies; the conceptualizations such as the definition and the dimensions of UX at work are ambiguous; the variety of the studied work domains are limited and do not contribute to the understanding of UX at work; and the consideration of contextual factors are arbitrary and coincidental. To advance this important field of research, we indicate the research gaps and suggest a research agenda introducing areas for future research.
... Research has investigated multi-device use in several contexts, and many systems and design solutions to support multi-device use have been proposed. Following Weiser's groundbreaking work at the beginning of the 1990s (Weiser, 1991), initial research on multi-device use focused on early adopters, usually in the area of computer science or more broadly knowledge work (Dearman & Pierce, 2008;Fauquet-Alekhine & Lahlou, J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f 2017; Grudin, 2001;Lahlou, 1999Lahlou, , 2007Oulasvirta & Sumari, 2007;Santosa & Wigdor, 2013;Tungare & Perez-Quinones, 2008;Tungare & Pérez-Quiñones, 2009). The use of multiple screens for one computer became popular early on as a means to manage work tasks and to help users "cleanly shift attention" (Grudin, 2001, p. 463). ...
... In a similar vein, a more recent observational study suggests that multi-device use can be organized into sequential and parallel use, with parallel use either being related, unrelated, or exhibiting some form of resource lending, such as sharing a tablet screen onto a laptop, or using a phone as a TV remote (Jokela et al., 2015). The 'kit' of devices users carry therefore determines what types of activities they can engage in, and have become an influencing factor for their lifestyle (Dearman & Pierce, 2008;Oulasvirta & Sumari, 2007); kit choices have been found to depend on device capabilities, screen size, and portability (Nguyen et al., 2021). Users generally hold positive attitudes towards multi-device use and describe it as driven by a desire for convenience, especially when it comes to accomplishing tasks with less effort and in simpler ways (Monge Roffarello & De Russis, 2021). ...
Using multiple devices at the same time is becoming increasingly common in the daily lives of users, be it for work or for leisure. This paper presents in situ qualitative and quantitative evidence of multi-device use from a dataset of over 200h of first-person and interview recordings (n = 41). We discuss three different ‘patterns’ of multi device use (work, leisure, mixed use) and illustrate the user experience in detail with three participant journeys. We find that the smartphone was always ‘in the mix’; we did not observe multi-device use without the smartphone, or isolated use of other devices. Overall, we suggest that looking at transitions between activities users engage in rather than devices they use is more effective to understand multi-device use. Based on this analysis, we highlight issues around the patterns and experiences of multi-device use in everyday life and provide recommendations for design and further research.
... Marshall & Tang, 2012). However, some people feel these methods are not reliable or do not fit well into their schedules or operations, and so may initiate and make back ups manually (Capra et al., 2014;Dearman & Pierce, 2008), for example as a consequence of related activities . Not all users make backups , but may nonetheless feel that they should be doing so or doing so more frequently (Kearns, Frey, Tomer, & Alman, 2014). ...
... , Capra (2009), Capra, Vardell, and Brennan (2014), Carroll (1982), Crowder, Marion, and Reilly (2015), Dearman and Pierce (2008), Gonçalves and Jorge (2003), Henderson (2005), Srinivasan (2009), Hicks, Dong, Palmer, andMcAlpine (2008), Huvila, Eriksen, Häusner, and Jansson (2014), W. Jones, Bruce, and Dumais (2001), W. Jones et al. (2015), W. ...
Computer users spend time every day interacting with digital files and folders, including downloading, moving, naming, navigating to, searching for, sharing, and deleting them. Such file management has been the focus of many studies across various fields, but has not been explicitly acknowledged nor made the focus of dedicated review. In this article we present the first dedicated review of this topic and its research, synthesizing more than 230 publications from various research domains to establish what is known and what remains to be investigated, particularly by examining the common motivations, methods, and findings evinced by the previously furcate body of work. We find three typical research motivations in the literature reviewed: understanding how and why users store, organize, retrieve, and share files and folders, understanding factors that determine their behavior, and attempting to improve the user experience through novel interfaces and information services. Relevant conceptual frameworks and approaches to designing and testing systems are described, and open research challenges and the significance for other research areas are discussed. We conclude that file management is a ubiquitous, challenging, and relatively unsupported activity that invites and has received attention from several disciplines and has broad importance for topics across information science.
... Seamless transition is an important user experience element in multi-device interaction mode. Dearman and Pierce [41] studied the techniques that people use to access multiple devices to produce a better user experience (UX) when working across devices. They argue that one of the main challenges is supporting seamless device changes. ...
... However, these studies generally focused more on the technological aspects of the problem [27]. Dearman and Pierce [41] suggest that there are opportunities to improve the cross-platform UX by focusing on users rather than on applications and devices. Hence, our research aim is to provide a user-based testing methodology that leads to insights into user experiences and needs for task continuity and seamless transition. ...
It is becoming common for several devices to be utilised together to access and manipulate shared information spaces and migrate tasks between devices. Despite the increased worldwide use of cross-platform services, there is limited research into how cross-platform service usability can be assessed. This paper presents a novel cross-platform usability model. The model employs the think-aloud protocol, observations, and questionnaires to reveal cross-platform usability problems. Two Likert scales were developed for measuring overall user satisfaction of cross-platform usability and user satisfaction with the seamlessness of the transition between one device and another. The paper further employs a series of objective measures for the proposed model. The viability and performance of the model were examined in the context of evaluating three cross-platform services across three devices. The results demonstrate that the model is a valuable method for assessing and quantifying cross-platform usability. The findings were thoroughly analysed and discussed, and subsequently used to refine the model. The model was also evaluated by eight user experience experts and seven out of the eight agreed that it is useful.
... Within our corpus, several papers have reported on findings of observational in-situ or lab studies in order to build an understanding of cross-device use to guide further research directions or facilitate design choices. For example, early observations of multi-display use in office environments (Grudin 2001) triggered other research of how cognitive load can be reduced through usage of multiple displays (Hutchings et al. 2004) and multiple devices (Oulasvirta and Sumari 2007;Dearman and Pierce 2008;Santosa and Wigdor 2013). Similarly, other observational studies have been used to investigate current multi-device utilisation (Cecchinato et al. 2016;Cecchinato, Cox, and Bird 2017), barriers for true multi-device usage (Plank et al. 2017), or the effects of display sizes in collaborative work (Zagermann et al. 2016;Huang, Mynatt, and Trimble 2007). ...
... More specifically, we need new concepts, feedback and feed-forward mechanisms, and user interface patterns that are designed specifically for cross-device computing (as discussed later in Chapter 8).4.7.3 Mitigating the Effects of Legacy BiasThe phenomenon of legacy bias, where users resort to well-known interaction styles even when more effective and novel techniques are available, has been documented in studies of cross-device sensemaking(Plank et al. 2017), note-taking(Jensen et al. 2018), and curation tasks (Chapter 5). Although workplace and user experience studies consistently report that many people are already struggling with multi-device fragmentation(Cecchinato et al. 2016;Dearman and Pierce 2008;Santosa and Wigdor 2013), it remains an open issue to what extent users will adopt new multi-device systems. More research into the mental models of individual devices and larger ecologies is needed to provide an empirical ground for new technical cross-device research. ...
Driven by technological advancements, we now own and operate an ever-growing number of digital devices, leading to an increased amount of digital data we produce, use, and maintain. However, while there is a substantial increase in computing power and availability of devices and data, many tasks we conduct with our devices are not well connected across multiple devices. We conduct our tasks sequentially instead of in parallel, while collaborative work across multiple devices is cumbersome to set up or simply not possible. To address these limitations, this thesis is concerned with cross-device computing. In particular it aims to conceptualise, prototype, and study interactions in cross-device computing. This thesis contributes to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)—and more specifically to the area of cross-device computing—in three ways: first, this work conceptualises previous work through a taxonomy of cross-device computing resulting in an in-depth understanding of the field, that identifies underexplored research areas, enabling the transfer of key insights into the design of interaction techniques. Second, three case studies were conducted that show how cross-device interactions can support curation work as well as augment users’ existing devices for individual and collaborative work. These case studies incorporate novel interaction techniques for supporting cross-device work. Third, through studying cross-device interactions and group collaboration, this thesis provides insights into how researchers can understand and evaluate multi- and cross-device interactions for individual and collaborative work. We provide a visualization and querying tool that facilitates interaction analysis of spatial measures and video recordings to facilitate such evaluations of cross-device work. Overall, the work in this thesis advances the field of cross-device computing with its taxonomy guiding research directions, novel interaction techniques and case studies demonstrating cross-device interactions for curation, and insights into and tools for effective evaluation of cross-device systems.
... The main reason for this is that it is rare for people to use two smart devices with similar functions (e.g., two smart phones or two PCs) in daily life. Even though people are always in circumstances in which a series of electronic devices, including TVs, PCs, PADs, and smart phones, are within reach, each device tends to be assigned its own function rather than being used collaboratively 4 Shandong Experimental High School, Jinan, China according to their computing power, size, and display resolutions [4]. Such specialization and the different privacy degrees of devices have led to specific device task parings [5]. ...
... The main reason for this is that it is rare for people to use two smart devices with similar functions (e.g., two smart phones or two PCs) in daily life. Even though people are always in circumstances in which a series of electronic devices, including TVs, PCs, PADs, and smart phones, are within reach, each device tends to be assigned its own function rather than being used collaboratively 4 Shandong Experimental High School, Jinan, China according to their computing power, size, and display resolutions [4]. Such specialization and the different privacy degrees of devices have led to specific device task parings [5]. ...
Along with the increasing emergence of smart watch devices, new interaction techniques between these devices and smart phones have been proposed to leverage their availability. However, there are few existing studies on enhancing smart watches’ current functions: working as an information processing system for users’ phones in terms of both browsing and handling short information. In this work, we introduce a framework for handling tasks between the smart phone and the smart watch, including task delegation and task management, that enables the smart watch to temporarily handle lightweight jobs from the smart phone. By utilizing this framework, people can save valuable phone screen space for more complicated or important tasks. Moreover, considering users’ multi-tasking behaviors, we also provide some example situations where users use both their phone and smart watch to handle different kinds of tasks simultaneously. The user study illustrates that lightweight jobs can be efficiently handled by users on the watch.
... There is a growing trend for using multiple computing devices to support both the individual's personal and business activities (Dearman & Pierce, 2008). Multiple devices are arguably "fundamental enablers of all emerging communications" (Lyytinen & Yoo, 2002, p. 379). ...
... Currently, individuals' activities span multiple devices including laptops, desktops, tablets, mobile phones, and smartwatches. Even though using multiple devices improves access to information and supports performance, managing information across those multiple devices has been viewed a challenge (Dearman & Pierce, 2008). Hence, the important aspect of owning and using multiple devices is the management and synchronization (cloud storage) of information across the devices (Lyytinen & Yoo, 2002). ...
This paper examines the impact of mobile device characteristics on perceptions of cloud storage. Following the framework and guidelines for context-specific theorizing in information systems research, we develop and test a model that examines the following research questions: How does the individual's experience with mobile devices impact perceptions of mobile cloud storage? How do mobile context-specific factors influence the individual's adoption of cloud storage? The model incorporates context-specific factors such as ease of file storage, ease of file transfer, multiple device use, and mobile device use. Our study contributes to the literature on theorizing context-specific factors by highlighting the importance of mobile device characteristics and usage contexts in individual technology adoption research. We also identify both performance increases and security challenges in providing access to cloud storage through mobile devices to individuals.
... Malware attacks can gain unauthorised access through planned or unplanned actions. Within the small business sector, people use the external drives on standalone devices to share files and folders on the stand alone computers (Dearman & Pierce, 2008). On the contrary, employees carelessly access unknown websites on the networked systems or ignorantly click on links to download software while processing business transactions (Ncubukezi, 2022). ...
The presence of severe malware attacks in business systems compromises devices, data, information, and network hygiene. The increased usage of cyberspace as a convenient tool exposed all organisations to various malware attacks. The malware attacks have become one of the most common threats in all sectors. These attacks often find their way into systems where poor or inadequate security measures are implemented, leaving the institution’s resources vulnerable and compromised. This work collected data using purposive sampling from the selected small businesses that used cyberspace for business transactions. A questionnaire distributed to the participants was mounted on Google Forms. To analyse the collected data, this work assessed the malware attacks and used the risk management processes to determine the risk impact and probability. Risk management processes were used to analyse and interpret different risks associated with malware attacks and also ranked them from low, medium, and high. The work also revealed the different forms of common malware attacks, the business assets affected, the main causes of malware attacks, risk value, risk likelihood, and the risk impact. The extent of security measures implemented on different levels contributes to the overall state of the organisational resources. The study also shared the recommendations and accounted for the conclusion.
... Malware attacks can gain unauthorised access through planned or unplanned actions. Within the small business sector, people use the external drives on standalone devices to share files and folders on the stand alone computers (Dearman & Pierce, 2008). On the contrary, employees carelessly access unknown websites on the networked systems or ignorantly click on links to download software while processing business transactions (Ncubukezi, 2022). ...
The presence of severe malware attacks in business systems compromise devices, data, information, and network hygiene. The increased usage of cyberspace as a convenient tool exposed all organisations to various malware attacks. The malware attacks have become one of the most common threats in all sectors. These attacks often find their way into systems where poor or inadequate security measures are implemented and leaving institution's resources vulnerable, and compromised. Data used in this work was collected using purposive sampling from the selected small businesses that used cyberspace for business transactions. A questionnaire distributed to the participants was mounted on Google Forms. To analyse the collected data, this work performed the risk assessment of the malware attacks and used the risk management processes to determine the risk impact and risk probability. Risk management processes were used to analyse and interpret different risks associated with malware attacks and also ranked them from low, medium, and high. The work also revealed the different forms of common malware attacks, business assets affected, and main causes of malware attacks, risk value, risk likelihood and the risk impact. The extent of security measures implemented on different levels contributes to the overall state of the organisational resources. The study also shared the recommendations and accounted for the conclusion.
... Though the recent information and communication technologies provide the ability to access content in different multimedia forms on the basis of media convergence, there are certain exclusive features carried by each screen device that are different from other devices and thereby increase the need for owning and consuming many screen devices by a single user; the choice of using a device significantly differs with the This study is a part of the first author's doctoral thesis. user's activities involved (Bröhl et al., 2018;Dearman & Pierce, 2008). Depending on individual demands, each member of a family uses a variety of screen devices; however, smartphones have received most attention. ...
Smartphones are frequently the subject of digital screen media-based research due to their popularity. Other screen devices, such as computers, conventional TV, laptops, smart TV, and tablets, which have a significant impact on children’s and adolescents’ psychological behaviors, are rarely covered. Parents are considered the active agents who can regulate adolescents screen-based media use and control online risks. Parents of adolescents in developing countries are digital immigrants, and their consumption patterns of screen devices must be studied before exploring their media usage regulatory strategies for children and adolescents. To gather information on screen device usage patterns, including availability, usage, ownership, and screen time, a quantitative technique approach was used in the study. A statistical analysis was performed on survey data collected from 447 parent-adolescent dyadic samples (n=894). Results show a positive association between socio-economic status and the number of screen devices present in households. Parents and adolescents spend the same amount of screen time on conventional TV and smart TV as they do on smartphones. Tablets were the least used, but they had more screen time than laptops and computers. Screen time is associated with the intended use of the device. Screen time spent per device by digital immigrant parents is quite like that of their digital-native adolescents. Girls use smartphones often; boys spend more screen time with them. Parents’ screen-based media usage practices should also be regulated, as they highly influence their children’s screen time.
... With the popularity and development of mobile and wearable devices, people's daily interactions with information technology increasingly involve more than one device (Dearman et al, 2008), gradually forming a multi-device ecosystem. Research on cross-device experiences continues to be produced by scholars (Brudy et al, 2019). ...
... Research on activity-based computing [10,24] has suggested the benefits of granting users access to their information repository as well as the ability to perform tasks across multiple devices. While the current implementation of Wigglite mobile application does enable users to collect information and triage it with valence as well as to review their collected information, extending it to support more complex operations such as creating and curating topics could be an interesting direction for future work. ...
Consumers conducting comparison shopping, researchers making sense of competitive space, and developers looking for code snippets online all face the challenge of capturing the information they find for later use without interrupting their current flow. In addition, during many learning and exploration tasks, people need to externalize their mental context, such as estimating how urgent a topic is to follow up on, or rating a piece of evidence as a "pro" or "con," which helps scaffold subsequent deeper exploration. However, current approaches incur a high cost, often requiring users to select, copy, context switch, paste, and annotate information in a separate document without offering specific affordances that capture their mental context. In this work, we explore a new interaction technique called "wiggling," which can be used to fluidly collect, organize, and rate information during early sensemaking stages with a single gesture. Wiggling involves rapid back-and-forth movements of a pointer or up-and-down scrolling on a smartphone, which can indicate the information to be collected and its valence, using a single, light-weight gesture that does not interfere with other interactions that are already available. Through implementation and user evaluation, we found that wiggling helped participants accurately collect information and encode their mental context with a 58% reduction in operational cost while being 24% faster compared to a common baseline.
... Furthermore, people use devices much differently than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Since many tasks span multiple devices (Dearman and Pierce 2008), people use several devices simultaneously and switch between them to complete a single task (Brudy et al. 2019). For example, Netflix's ''Continue Watching'' feature allows customers to start watching a movie on one device (e.g., a TV in the living room) and continue watching on another device (e.g., a smartphone or tablet) while commuting or waiting for an appointment (Netflix 2013). ...
... Other empirical studies have identified the challenges of managing these devices and applications. Dearman and Pierce (2008) found that managing information across devices was the most challenging aspect of using multiple devices. Oleksik et al. (2012) studied the artifact ecology of a research center and found that scientists used multiple computing applications to create information artifacts that are locked into applications, making it difficult to reuse content and get a unified view of the related research material. ...
Millions of users work with documents for their everyday tasks but their user interfaces have not fundamentally changed since they were first designed in the late seventies. Today’s computers come in many forms and are used by a wide variety of users for a wide range of tasks, challenging the limits of current document interfaces. I argue that by focusing on extreme users and taking on a principled perspective, we can design effective and flexible representations to support document-related knowledge work. I first study one of the most common document tasks, text editing, in the context of technical documents. By focusing on legal professionals, one example of extreme document users, we reveal the limits of current word processors. Legal professionals must rely on their memory to manage dependencies and maintain consistent vocabulary within their technical documents. To address these issues, we introduce Textlets, interactive objects that reify text selections into persistent items. We present a proof-of-concept prototype demonstrating several use cases, including selective search and replace, word count, and alternative wording. The observational evaluation shows the usefulness and effectiveness of textlets, providing evidence of the validity of the textlet concept. During my work with legal professionals in the first project, I was introduced to the domain of patent writing and filling. In the patent process, patent attorneys write patent submissions that describe the invention created by the inventor. Patent examiners review the submission and decide whether the submission can be granted as a patent. In collaboration with a European Patent Office, I studied the patent examiners’ search and review process. The study reveals the need to manage text from multiple documents across various interconnected activities, including searching, collecting, annotating, organizing, writing and reviewing, while manually tracking their provenance. I extend Textlets to create Passages, text selection objects that can be manipulated, reused, and shared across multiple tools. Two user studies show that Passages facilitate knowledge workers practices and enable greater reuse of information. These two projects led to another important aspect of knowledge work: file management. I focus on scientists, another example of extreme knowledge workers, to study their document management practices. In an age where heterogeneous data science workflows are the norm, instead of relying on more self-contained environments such as Jupyter Notebooks, scientists work across many diverse tools. They have difficulties using the file system to keep track of, re-find and maintain consistency among related but distributed information. We created FileWeaver, a system that automatically detects dependencies among files without explicit user action, tracks their history, and lets users interact directly with the graphs representing these dependencies and version history. By making dependencies among files explicit and visible, FileWeaver facilitates the automation of workflows by scientists and other users who rely on the file system to manage their data. These three document representations rely on the same underlying theoretical principles: reification, polymorphism and reuse. I reflect on my experience designing and evaluating these representations and propose three new design principles: granularity, individuality and synchronization. Together with the empirical findings from three examples of extreme users, technological demonstration of three proof-of-concept prototypes and three design principles, this thesis demonstrates fresh new approaches to working with documents, a fundamental representation in GUIs. I argue that we should not accept current desktop interfaces as given, and that by taking on a principled and theory-driven perspective we can contribute innovative interface concepts.
... E-learning platforms like google classroom, Zoom, Microsoft teams give students flexibility and empower students by allowing them to learn their own pace and schedule (Aggarwal, kumar, & kaur 2021). 320 million students have been affected by Covid-19 school closures (van Cappelle, Chopra, Ackers & Gochyyev 2021), and (Dearman, & Pierce, 2008). Observation like this is exceptions than the norm. ...
The study investigates the influence of gender and family size on the availability and utilization of online resources for learning during covid-19 among secondary school pupils of northern districts in Kerala. The study was on a stratified random sample of eighth and ninth class students drawn from ten schools of four districts in Kerala. A questionnaire was used for collecting data. Gender and family size are independent variables of the study. Significant associations between gender and time spent on online (synchronous and asynchronous) education and, between the number of children in the family and availability and utilization of web facilities and social media during Covid-19 were observed.. Index Terms-Gender, online learning, Covid-19 and secondary school.
... While evidence has been presented [14] showcasing similar tendencies in HCI, non-robotic artefacts have an increased tendency by design to support sequential interaction. Examples of this include typical interactions with non-robotics devices such as smartphones, tablets, and PCs [32,131,143,157,185]). Nowadays, it is not uncommon for commercial digital artefacts to be designed with support for sequential interactions, for example, moving sessions between devices [157]. ...
Going beyond dyadic (one-to-one) interaction has been increasingly explored in HRI. Yet we lack a comprehensive view on non-dyadic interaction research in HRI. To map out 15 years of works investigating non-dyadic interaction, and thereby identifying the trend of the field and future research areas, we performed a literature review containing all 164 publications (2006-2020) from the HRI conference investigating non-dyadic interaction. Our approach is inspired by the 4C framework, an interaction framework focusing on understanding and categorising different types of interaction between humans and digital artefacts. The 4C framework consists of eight interaction principles for multi-user/multi-artefact interaction categorised into four broader themes. We modified the 4C framework to increase applicability and relevance in the context of non-dyadic human-robot interaction. We identify an increasing tendency towards non-dyadic research (36% in 2020), as well as a focus on simultaneous studies (85% from 2006-2020) over sequential. We also articulate seven interaction principles utilised in non-dyadic HRI and provide specific examples. Last, based on our findings, we discuss several salient points of non-dyadic HRI, the applicability of the modified 4C framework to HRI and potential future topics of interest as well as open-questions for non-dyadic research.
... However, mobile devices (laptops, smartphones, and tablets) also constitute a bridge across work and personal boundaries, as Dearman and Pierce (2008) and Fleck, Cox and Robison (2015) found. Karlson, Meyers, Jacobs, Johns and Kane (2009) looked specifically at multi-device use and the impact on boundaries and working time. ...
We live in a world of communication overload, where there is a wide range of platforms and devices to choose from, each providing massive content, offering different affordances, and fighting for our attention. Mobile technologies have contributed to expectations of anywhere anytime connectedness, making it hard for individuals to switch off. As a result, it can be hard to feel truly disconnected from work. A lack of control over work-home boundary cross-overs and interruptions can reduce post-work recovery, reducing productivity and increasing stress. Technology is not inherently good or bad, but rather, the way it is adopted and used can positively or negatively color one’s experience. As such, in this critical review we take a social constructionist approach to emphasize how communication technologies are challenging, as well as supporting, work-home boundary management. In doing so, we bring together work from occupational psychology (boundary theory) and human-computer interaction (computer-mediated communication and cross-device interaction). Understanding how these aspects interact and influence each other is important in order to support individuals appropriately, inform policies and guidelines, and ensure both social and digital interactions are designed carefully.
... Since multitasking on multiple devices has been shown to reduce performance and increase strain, indiscriminate use of multiple interactive devices could be detrimental to occupational health and safety (Paridon & Kaufmann, 2010). Consequently, a lot of research effort in recent years has been devoted to constructing crossdevice workspaces, which comes with several challenges (Dearman & Pierce, 2008;Santosa & Wigdor, 2013;Jokela, Ojala, & Olsson, 2015). First, devices vary in their modalities, and while different modality combinations could be used to reduce cognitive overload (Elting, Zwickel, & Malaka, 2002), the best suitable device for each task element has to be chosen. ...
Assistance is becoming increasingly relevant in carrying out industrial work in the context of cyber-physical production systems (CPPSs) and Industry 4.0. While assistance in a single task via a single interaction modality has been explored previously, crossdevice interaction could improve the quality of assistance, especially given the concurrent and distributed nature of work in CPPSs. In this paper, we present the theoretical foundations and implementation of MiWSICx (Middleware for Work Support in Industrial Contexts), a middleware that showcases how multiple interactive computing devices such as tablets, smartphones, augmented/virtual reality glasses, and wearables could be combined to provide crossdevice industrial assistance. Based on activity theory, MiWSICx models human work as activities combining multiple users, artifacts, and cyber-physical objects. MiWSICx is developed using the actor model for deployment on a variety of hardware alongside a CPPS to provide multiuser, crossdevice, multiactivity assistance.
... While Brubaker (2013) showed that there exists a relationship between Facebook usage and academic performance, he argued that multitasking between a social network site such as Facebook and performing academic studies may not handle such tasks effectively. However, Dearman and Pierce (2008) indicated that students are active users of web-services across multiple devices and make no effort to keep school and personal activities separate. Hence having all aspects of life collated into one platform might be beneficial. ...
... How to handle this complexity is an emerging issue both in personal information management (PIM) and related technology design. [7] research suggested out that file synchronization would be important in future technical developments because of users' needs for file integration and information sharing among individuals and groups. Since the human factor was getting involved more and more in system design, they suggested that we should consider and focus on users, instead of devices, because it is humans who create and then adopt the devices. ...
... Our work aims to investigate cross-device application sharing by using a mobile device's camera. We base our investigations on a wide range of earlier works including the synchronization of clipboards between multiple computers (Miller & Myers, 1999), shortcuts linking recent and shared activities (Tang et al., 2007) and interaction between multiple devices (Dearman & Pierce, 2008). Early cross-device data sharing was enabled by process migration (Begole et al., 1999). ...
As the range of handheld, mobile and desktop devices expands and worldwide demand for collaborative application tools increases, there is a growing need for higher speed impromptu cross-device application sharing to keep up with workplace requirements for on-site or remote collaborations. To address this, we have developed CamCutter, a cross-device interaction technique enabling a user to quickly select and share an application running on another screen using the camera of a handheld device. This technique can accurately identify the targeted application on a display using our adapted computer vision algorithm, system architecture and software implementation, allowing impromptu real-time and synchronized application sharing between devices. For desktop and meeting room set-ups, we performed a technical evaluation, measuring accuracy and speed of migration. For a single-user reading task and a collaborative composition task, we carried out a user study comparing our technique with commercial screen sharing applications. The results of this study showed both higher performance and preference for our system. Finally, we discuss CamCutter’s limitations and present insights for future vision-based cross-device application sharing.
... In this new era of wireless communication, we have come to expect high degrees of synchrony and interactivity with our devices. The growing importance of e-squads is profoundly modifying how we live [135][136][137][138], and has opened new areas of research such as proxemics, the study of proximity-based interactions in a world of ubiquitous computing [139]. As we meet people, we engage in multi-device interactions spanning across our respective e-squads: we co-edit projects, exchange digital content, play online and listen to collaborative playlists. ...
The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has proved to be dangerous for the people's right to privacy: more and more connected appliances are sharing personal data about people's daily lives to private parties beyond their control.Still, we believe that the IoT could just as well become a guardian of our privacy, would it escape the centralised cloud model.In this thesis, we explore a novel concept, the e-squad: to make one's connected devices collaborate through gossip communication to build new privacy-preserving services.We show how an e-squad can privately build knowledge about their user and leverage this information to create predictive applications.We demonstrate that collaboration helps to overcome the end-devices' poor availability and performance.Finally, we federate e-squads to build a robust anonymous file exchange service, proving their potential beyond the single-user scenario.We hope this manuscript inspires the advent of more humane and delightful technology.
... While Brubaker (2013) showed that there exists a relationship between Facebook usage and academic performance, he argued that multitasking between a social network site such as Facebook and performing academic studies may not handle such tasks effectively. However, Dearman and Pierce (2008) indicated that students are active users of web-services across multiple devices and make no effort to keep school and personal activities separate. Hence having all aspects of life collated into one platform might be beneficial. ...
... However, such a device fragmentation implies wide-ranging variety in terms of interaction resources, and support for media formats and apps, a situation which creates many interoperability and usability problems. A previous study [18] aims to identify the reasons why and how users interact with multiple devices in their daily life. The results indicate that people already exploit various techniques for crossdevice information access and management. ...
Seamless interaction across personal and public devices is still problematic. Gestural interaction can be a useful support for this purpose, but how to exploit it in cross-device frameworks is still unclear. We present an elicitation study aiming to contribute in identifying the most intuitive single or combined gestures that people can perform to interact with cross-device applications. This study led us to the definition of a possible gesture vocabulary for the typical interactive tasks in such applications. We then applied the resulting preferred gestures in an example cross-device Web application exploiting it. This application has finally been tested in order to evaluate the gestures' actual usability in cross-device interactions.
... However, applications are usually confined to run on a single device at any given time. At best, they are capable of synchronizing certain types of data; and it is common that such synchronization needs to be explicitly turned on [11,15,48]. Therefore, it is important to take better advantage of the many devices around us by coming up with ways of integrating and combining them. ...
We currently live surrounded by many different computing devices. Therefore, it is important to take better advantage of those devices by coming up with smart ways of integrating and combining them. We have been exploring the possibility of building applications that present user interfaces pervasively distributed across different co-located devices. We designed the YanuX framework, which generalizes and supports the development of this new type of applications. A key issue is the automatic distribution of user interface (UI) components among co-located devices. We created the tools set needed to describe the capabilities of each of the devices present in the environment and the requirements of each of the applications' components as configured by the developers. Restrictions of the components should match the capabilities of the devices leading to a UI component distribution decision that should reflect devel-opers' intentions and expectations of the users. Besides detailing YanuX's components, the paper also presents YouTube Viewer as a proof-of-concept application based on YanuX. The application was also used in a user study to evaluate the concept and the experience supported by the framework. The results presented here are positive and very promising.
... Certain work tasks appear to be more appropriate for mobile interfaces than others [3,46]. Information workers often defer engaging with a task based on the device that is available [15,27]. However, information workers want the ability to continue tasks across devices as they otherwise have to manually transmit data between devices [24,51]. ...
There has been considerable research on how software can enhance programmers' productivity within their workspace. In this paper, we instead explore how software might help programmers make productive use of their time while away from their workspace. We interviewed 10 software engineers and surveyed 78 others and found that while programmers often do work while mobile, their existing mobile work practices are primarily exploratory (e.g., capturing thoughts or performing online research). In contrast, they want to be doing work that is more grounded in their existing code (e.g., code review or bug triage). Based on these findings, we introduce Mercury, a system that guides programmers in making progress on-the-go with auto-generated microtasks derived from their source code's current state. A study of Mercury with 20 programmers revealed that they could make meaningful progress with Mercury while mobile with little effort or attention. Our findings suggest an opportunity exists to support the continuation of programming tasks across devices and help programmers resume coding upon returning to their workspace.
... These devices aid with everyday matters: entertainment, socializing with friends, as well as capturing and sharing personal events. Despite the desire that owning and operating multiple devices should be casual, fluid, and hassle-free for the user ( Miranda et al., 2015 ), a transition to multi-device ownership is however riddled with many problems ( Ometov et al., 2017;Dearman and Pierce, 2008 ). Numerous devices and their connectivity options call for a new breed of multi-device applications that enable coordinated interaction between nodes in a pervasive manner. ...
Today’s dominant design for the Internet of Things (IoT) is a Cloud-based system, where devices transfer their data to a back-end and in return receive instructions on how to act. This view is challenged when delays caused by communication with the back-end become an obstacle for IoT applications with, for example, stringent timing constraints. In contrast, Fog Computing approaches, where devices communicate and orchestrate their operations collectively and closer to the origin of data, lack adequate tools for programming secure interactions between humans and their proximate devices at the network edge. This paper fills the gap by applying Action-Oriented Programming (AcOP) model for this task. While originally the AcOP model was proposed for Cloud-based infrastructures, presently it is re-designed around the notion of coalescence and disintegration, which enable the devices to collectively and autonomously execute their operations in the Fog by serving humans in a peer-to-peer fashion. The Cloud’s role has been minimized—it is being leveraged as a development and deployment platform.
... Grudin [30] interviewed users who had multiple monitors and found activities were distributed across monitors by task instead of by device capabilities. Through interviews, Dearman and Pierce [20] also found a primary/secondary device divide, but found functionality was continually assigned and revoked across one's device ecosystem. Interviews conducted by Santosa and Wigdor [86] identified two new interaction patterns centered on the physical properties of a form factor (i.e., the smartphone as a helper for quick activities such as calculation or search) and viewer/controller metaphors (i.e., the smartphone as a remote for a presentation or a music player). ...
Prior research has demonstrated that users are increasingly employing multiple devices during daily work. Currently, devices such as keyboards, cell phones, and tablets remain largely unaware of their role within a user's workflow. As a result, transitioning between devices is tedious, often to the degree that users are discouraged from taking full advantage of the devices they have within reach. This work explores the device ecologies used in desk-centric environments and complies the insights observed into SMAC, a simplified model of attention and capture that emphasizes the role of user-device proxemics, as mediated by hand placement, gaze, and relative body orientation, as well as inter-device proxemics. SMAC illustrates the potential of harnessing the rich, proxemic diversity that exists between users and their device ecologies, while also helping to organize and synthesize the growing body of literature on distributed user interfaces. An evaluation study using SMAC demonstrated that users could easily understand the tenants of user- and inter-device proxemics and found them to be valuable within their workflows.
With the development of current technology, intelligent interaction scenarios based on multi-device collaboration are becoming more and more abundant, and users in multiple devices have increasingly clearly formed a demand for device collaboration service experience. At the same time, as a basic scenario in a multi-device experience, sharing behavior has a crucial impact on the overall experience. Therefore, it is meaningful to re-examine the multi-device experience design method in the current environment based on the original design theory, and to establish a suitable multi-device sharing experience design method according to the universal user needs.This paper conducts an in-depth theoretical analysis of the typical 3C framework of multi-device experience design theory, including the description of multi-device consistency, continuity and complementarity, but this theory can no longer fully explain the current increasingly complex multi-device experience scenarios. And lack of specific design principles. Therefore, through the sharing scene of multi-device experience, this paper proposes more detailed design principles in the classic 3C framework to guide the design of multi-device sharing scene. The specific method is: (1) Summarize several design principles based on the 3C framework through literature review and share the analysis of competing products/services (2) Review and verify these design principles by convening 30 experts (3) Modify the design principles to obtain the final design principles based on expert comments.This research provides a method to guide designers in the design of multi-device sharing experience. From the perspective of typical sharing behavior characteristics, this method provides more detailed guidance for different types of sharing experience. The final guideline not only enriches the theoretical value and influence of the 3C framework, but also provides a structured problem-solving thinking in user-oriented product experience design, enriching the theoretical research methods of experience design.KeywordsSharing experienceMulti-device experience design3C framework
Users’ search performance indicates the effectiveness and success with which users’ information needs are met, which is calculated based on the relevance judgment by users themselves. This study proposed to explore the prediction of users’ search performance in the context of cross-device search. A user experiment was performed to collect users’ relevance judgments and search behaviors in cross-device search. Based on users’ relevance judgments, users’ search performance was evaluated by calculating the percentage of valid clicks, effective search time, nDCG@n, and satisfaction. A simple linear regression model was adopted to train the prediction model. The final results showed that a combination of users’ search performance in pre-switch sessions and their search behavior in post-switch sessions can attain the best prediction accuracy. Important features to predict users’ search performance in cross-device search shed light on improving search systems to aid users in completing the task efficiently.
Adopting a re-materialization approach, we designed and implemented an everyday interactive artifact that enables an individual to monitor and establish the reconfirmation time of email data. This device represents a new means of handling and interacting with email. To investigate the value of the materialization of email data through a daily interactive object, Maili, we conducted a 1-month field study with five participants in their work environments. The results showed that applying physicality to email handling helped to increase accessibility to and interest in the data, as well as in the reconfirmation function of email. Results also indicated the value of combining non-digital (the tray) with digital functions. By presenting the process of using the dematerialized data, our findings offer new insights into how we can materialize digital information in everyday tangible artifacts.
In this workshop, we reviewed and discussed challenges and opportunities for Human-Computer Interaction in relation to cross-surface interaction in the wild based on the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) practice. We brought together researchers and practitioners working on technical infrastructures for cross-surface computing, studies of cross-surface computing in particular domains as well as interaction challenges for introducing cross-surface computing in the wild, all with a particular focus on BYOD. Examples of application domains are: cultural institutions, work places, public libraries, schools and education. Please find more details about the workshop, in the submitted proposal. The workshop was held in conjunction with the 2016 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), that took place from May 7 to 12 in San Jose, USA.
Multi-device use has become a popular pattern of device use in recent years. However, empirical studies pertaining to motivations behind intention to use multiple devices have been limited. The objective of this study focuses on answering an essential question: given that heterogeneous devices are available to users, why do users use multiple devices rather than a single device to complete a task? Both Task-Technology Fit Theory and mental workload paradigm are considered to develop eight hypotheses and build the research framework. A trip-planning scenario was designed and used in the questionnaire to understand the factors that motivate users to use multiple devices. A total of 217 subjects completed the questionnaire. The results show that perceived task fit with multi-device use forms users’ attitudes toward and expected satisfaction with multi-device use. Furthermore, users’ attitudes toward multi-device use trigger their intentions to use multiple devices. Additionally, perceived complexity of multi-device use hinders users from perceiving good task fit with multi-device use. Implications for theory, practice, and future research directions are discussed.
During the revolution of webs, several modern web applications appeared. After developing electronic devices, Ubiquitous web applications (UWA) becomes an important part of web applications. UWAs are a new type of web applications which are accessed in various contexts, meaning through different devices, by users with various interests, at any time from any place around the globe. The problem is UWA features made challenge during the process development of web engineering methods. Interaction Flow Modeling Language (IFML) is the recent modeling language has many concepts for developing interactions in web applications compared with other web engineering methods. In this paper, we present the role of IFML method to develop UWA features through analyzing IFML and designing a case study. The result of this paper becomes a guide for developers and increase the usability of IFML.
Recommendation systems are a part of the personalization of access to information, to give user items that correspond to his expectations, to simplify the navigation, make it fast and to guide the customer to the most relevant elements. In This article we highlight on the different types of approaches already used in recommendation systems, like collaborative filtering, content-based approach, demographic and hybrid recommendation. We discuss the conception of our recommendation system that combine many approaches such as demographic filtering, sentiment analysis in social media navigation traces to upgrade the performance of our system.
Cross-device search is an emerging subject in the study of information retrieval. This paper explores cross-device search behavior through the characteristics of cross-device search tasks. Unlike previous research on transaction log analysis, this paper extracted cross-device search tasks from descriptions of real-situation cross-device search experiences collected by a crowdsourcing survey targeting global users. A total of 343 valid responses were used for the content analysis, and the coding scheme was grounded in the Multiple Information Seeking Episodes (MISE) model, which was proposed for explaining successive multiple-episode search. Characteristics of cross-device search tasks were uncovered by coded categories of Topic, Type, Complexity of Knowledge Dimension, Complexity of Cognitive Dimension, Environment, Device Switch, and Switching Demand. The results show the most frequently searched topics are Arts, Shopping, Reference, and Computers. Task types focus on factual tasks, indicating a clear information need. Task complexity depends heavily on the user's cognition. Eight reasons for switching device are identified in understanding device switch demand. Finally, implications for designing cross-device search tasks are proposed based on the correlation among task attributes. Limitations on the degree to which respondents answered recall-based questions accurately have been acknowledged.
This paper draws attention to the growing adoption of web and mobile apps in the enterprise, typically supported by digital storage in the cloud. While these developments offer several advantages, they also pose challenges for workers who must make sense of increasingly complex software configurations – with apps accessible from multiple devices (typically supporting different features or capabilities) and used alongside legacy enterprise software. We investigate how workers navigate these environments through a qualitative study of the work practices of employees in an app-enhanced organization. Our findings focus on two sets of practices. The first involves appraising what software programs and software/device combos offer what features, what we refer to as software calculus. The second involves orienting towards data formats and database structures that underlie specific software programs and their interactions with specific devices, what we label data thinking. Building on prior work on the role of materiality in CSCW, our findings set out a call for further attention to the material and lively dimensions of software and the emergent challenges they pose for contemporary work practices.
This paper presents the design philosophy of activity-based computing (ABC), which addresses mobility and cooperation in human work activities. Furthermore, it presents the ABC framework, which is a ubiquitous computing infrastructure supporting ABC. The idea of ABC and the aim of the ABC framework is to: (1) support human activity by managing its collection of work tasks on a computer, (2) support mobility by distributing activities across heterogeneous computing environments, (3) support asynchronous collaboration by allowing several people to participate in an activity, and (4) support synchronous, real-time collaboration by enabling desktop conferencing by sharing the activity across several clients. During a period of two years, the ABC framework has been co-designed and evaluated in close cooperation with a range of clinicians in a hospital.
Email is one oftl~ most successful computer applicmiom yet devised. Our empin~:al ct~ta show however, that althongh email was origiraUy designed as a c~nmunica/ons application, it is now used for ~tional funaions, that it was not designed for, such as tab management and persona/ afoOt/v/rig. We call this ernt~l oveHoad We demonstrate that email overload creates problems for personal information manageaa,cnt: users eden have cluttered inboxes cor~mining hundreds of n~:age~¢, incl~rling outstanding tasks, partially read documents and conversational threads. Furthermore,, user attemt:Xs to rationalise their inbox~ by ~ing are ~Ron unsuccessful, with the consequence that important rr~ges get overlooked, or "lost" in archives. We explain how em~l over/oad/ng arises and propose technical solutions to the problem.
The project fragmentation problem in personal information management occurs when someone who is working on a single project stores and retrieves information items relating to that project from separate format-related collections (documents, emails and favorite Web sites). This study was aimed to test empirically users' working habits in order to shed light on the project fragmentation problem. Twenty personal computer users participated in the study. Data collection tools included an interview, screen captures and a questionnaire. Results indicate that users tend to store and retrieve project-related information items based on different formats in one project folder when the interface design encourages it. However, they store and retrieve project- related information items in different folders (documents, emails and favorite Web sites) when the design encourages such fragmentation. Two types of attempts to solve the project fragmentation problem are reviewed and a new possible solution is suggested. Author Keywords Personal information management, projects, fragmentation, integration, folder hierarchies, documents, email, favorites
Most information retrieval technologies are designed to facilitate information discovery. However, much knowledge work involves finding and re-using previously seen information. We describe the design and evaluation of a system, called Stuff I've Seen (SIS), that facilitates information re-use. This is accomplished in two ways. First, the system provides a unified index of information that a person has seen, whether it was seen as email, web page, document, appointment, etc. Second, because the information has been seen before, rich contextual cues can be used in the search interface. The system has been used internally by more than 230 employees. We report on both qualitative and quantitative aspects of system use. Initial findings show that time and people are important retrieval cues. Users find information more easily using SIS, and use other search tools less frequently after installation.
The ubiquity of wireless local and personal area networks, an expanding array of intelligent handheld devices, and an increasingly mobile lifestyle are enabling new forms of ensemble computing. Looking across four system layers - link, network, data, and application - the authors survey the technologies, standards, and leading-edge research making device ensembles a reality.
Bookmarks are used as "personal Web information spaces" to help people remember and retrieve interesting Web pages. A study of personal Web information spaces surveyed 322 Web users and analyzed the bookmark archives of 50 Web users. The results of this study are used to address why people make bookmarks, and how they create, use, and organize them. Recommendations for improving the organization, visualization, representation, and integration of bookmarks are provided. The recommendations include simple mechanisms for filing bookmarks at creation time, the use of time-based visualizations with automated filters, the use of contextual information in representing bookmarks, and the combination of hierarchy formation and Web page authoring to aid in organizing and viewing bookmarks.
This paper describes a new technique for transferring data between computers, the synchronized clipboard. Multiple computers can share a synchronized clipboard for all clipboard operations, so that data copied to the clipboard from one computer, using the standard Copy command, can be pasted directly on another computer using the standard Paste command. Synchronized clipboards are well-suited for a single user moving data among several computers in close proximity. We describe an implementation of synchronized clipboards that works across a wide range of existing systems, including 3Com PalmPilots, Microsoft Windows PCs, Unix workstations, and other Java-capable platforms. Our implementation adds no noticeable overhead to local copy and paste operations. KEYWORDS: Synchronized clipboard, network clipboard, data transfer, file transfer, drag-and-drop, pick-and-drop, distributed systems, Java, ubiquitous computing, Pebbles
Specialized elements of hardware and software, connected by wires, radio waves and infrared, will be so ubiquitous that no one will notice their presence.
This paper summarizes and synthesizes two independent studies of the ways users organize and find files on their computers. The first study (Barreau 1995) investigated information organization practices among users of DOS, Windows and OS/2. The second study (Nardi, Anderson and Erickson 1995), examined the finding and filing practices of Macintosh users. There were more similarities in the two studies than differences. Users in both studies (1) preferred location-based finding because of its crucial reminding function; (2) avoided elaborate filing schemes; (3) archived relatively little information; and (4) worked with three types of information: ephemeral, working and archived. A main difference between the study populations was that the Macintosh users used subdirectories to organize information and the DOS users did not.
The goal of this work is the design of an environment for supporting runtime migration of Web interfaces among different platforms. This allows users interacting with a Web application to change device and continue their interaction from the same point. The migration takes into account the runtime state of the interactive application and the different features of the devices involved. We consider Web interfaces developed through a multiple-level approach using: the definition of the tasks to support, the abstract description of the user interface and the actual code. The runtime migration engine exploits information regarding the application runtime state and higher-level information on the available target platforms. Runtime application data are used to achieve interaction continuity and preserve usability, while information on the different platforms is considered to adapt the application's appearance and behaviour to the specific device. The paper also discusses a sample application in order to provide concrete examples of the results that can be achieved through our approach.
A study at a large IT company shows that mobile informa- tion workers frequently migrate work across devices (here: smartphones, desktop PCs, laptops). While having multiple devices provides new opportunities to work in the face of changing resource deprivations, the management of devices is often problematic. The most salient problems are posed by 1) the physical effort demanded by various management tasks, 2) anticipating what data or functionality will be needed, and 3) aligning these efforts with work, mobility, and social situations. Workers' strategies of coping with these problems center on two interwoven activities: the physical handling of devices and cross-device synchroniza- tion. These aim at balancing risk and effort in immediate and subsequent use. Workers also exhibit subtle ways to handle devices in situ, appropriating their physical and op- erational properties. The design implications are discussed.
The ability to walk up to any computer, personalize it, and use it as one's own has long been a goal of mobile computing research. We present SoulPad, a new approach based on carrying an auto-configuring operating system along with a suspended virtual machine on a small portable device. With this approach, the computer boots from the device and resumes the virtual machine, thus giving the user access to his personal environment, including previously running computations. SoulPad has minimal infrastructure requirements and is therefore applicable to a wide range of conditions, particularly in developing countries. We report our experience implementing SoulPad and using it on a variety of hardware configurations. We address challenges common to systems similar to SoulPad, and show that the SoulPad model has significant potential as a mobility solution.
This research explores distributed sensing techniques for mobile devices using synchronous gestures. These are patterns of activity, contributed by multiple users (or one user with multiple devices), which take on a new meaning when they occur together in time, or in a specific sequence in time. To explore this new area of inquiry, this work uses tablet computers augmented with touch sensors and two-axis linear accelerometers (tilt sensors). The devices are connected via an 802.11 wireless network and synchronize their time-stamped sensor data. This paper describes a few practical examples of interaction techniques using synchronous gestures such as dynamically tiling together displays by physically bumping them together, discusses implementation issues, and speculates on further possibilities for synchronous gestures.
Preserving one’s uniquely customized computing environment as one moves to different locations is an enduring challenge in mobile computing. We examine why this capability is valued so highly, and what makes it so difficult to achieve for personal computing applications. We describe a new mechanism called Internet Suspend/Resume (ISR) that overcomes many of the limitations of previous approaches to realizing this capability. ISR enables a hands-free approach to mobile computing that appears well suited to future pervasive computing environments in which commodity hardware may be widely deployed for transient use. We show that ISR can be implemented by layering virtual machine technology on distributed file system technology. We also report on measurements from a prototype that confirm that ISR is already usable today for some common usage scenarios.
Do you put family photos on your desk at work? Are your home and work keys on the same chain? Do you keep one all-purpose calendar for listing home and work events? Do you have separate telephone books for colleagues and friends? In Home and Work, Christena Nippert-Eng examines the intricacies and implications of how we draw the line between home and work. Arguing that relationships between the two realms range from those that are highly "integrating" to those that are highly "segmenting," Nippert-Eng examines the ways people sculpt the boundaries between home and work. With remarkable sensitivity to the symbolic value of objects and actions, Nippert-Eng explores the meaning of clothing, wallets, lunches and vacations, and the places and ways in which we engage our family, friends, and co-workers. Commuting habits are also revealing, showing how we make the transition between home and work selves though ritualized behavior like hellos and goodbyes, the consumption of food, the way we dress, our choices of routes to and from work, and our listening, working, and sleeping habits during these journeys. The ways each of us manages time, space, and people not only reflect but reinforce lives that are more "integrating" or "segmenting" at any given time. In clarifying what we take for granted, this book will leave you thinking in different ways about your life and work.
A requirement of 'The Office of the Future' is that it provides us with an effective way of storing and retrieving information. But existing IT products go nowhere near supporting the variety of activities which can be observed in paper-based offices, and it is not surprising that concepts of the 'paperless office' are as far off as they were when the idea was first mooted. This paper illustrates how many of the issues involved in the automation of information management are essentially psychological in nature. These principally devolve upon the processes of recall, recognition and categorisation. Examples of existing information management techniques show how there is a trend to automate with a view to simulating office practices, or to develop according to the availability of technological solutions. Both of these are inefficient with respect to the user's psychological needs. A framework for developing user-oriented information management systems is discussed and relevant research issues presented.
Software today does not help us partition our digital worlds effectively. We do it ourselves. This field study of users of multiple monitors examines how people with a lot of display space organize and arrange information. Their second monitors are not generally used as extra workspace, they are used for secondary activities related to principal tasks, for peripheral awareness of information that is not the main focus, and for easy access to resources. The second monitor improves efficiency in ways that may be difficult to measure yet can have substantial subjective effect. The study provides specific illustrations of shortcomings of today's systems and applications: The way we work online could be improved substantially at relatively low cost. Keywords Awareness, multiple monitors, displays INTRODUCTION As more of our activities are supported digitally, we use more applications and devices, at work, in the home, on the move. The goal of getting information to and from "anyone, any...
Nippert-Eng, C.E. Home and Work: Negotiating Boundaries through Everyday Life
- C E Nippert-Eng
- Nippert-Eng C.E.