Response: Activity Sensing in the Wild: Field Trial of UbiGarden

Summary:

In this paper, Consolvo et al., discussed their findings of utilizing the UbiFit garden -- a system they designed for promoting fitness -- in the wild. A combination of a mobile phone, a sensor and an application are used in their system. As the sensor retrieves numerous types of data, they designed the application to abstract the data and present it in the form of an aesthetically visual garden. The garden also serves as positive reinforcement for a user, such that if they perform more physical activities, the garden is “brighter”. With 12 people utilizing the system, the researchers discovered some interesting facts. For one user, whose system was incorrectly working, he was frustrated he didn’t get the flower in the garden. This highlighted the “game-aspect” of the system. Additionally, they also found that users really preferred selecting their own type of information to add,edit, etc. Personalization of data was very important. Overall, the researchers got positive feedback from their system.

Response:

While this paper was primarily about the UbiFit garden implementation, it was also a commentary on activity sensing. In this implementation, with the activity sensing, I felt this was too much like a game (especially based on one of the comments from a user) and kind of super ceded the point that the point of fitness was to get fitter, not to play a game. Another important component of this system that may be generalizable was the personalization of data. Having the data be user customizable made it feel (or at least appear) to the users that the device was more a part of what they did daily rather than something they had to do. This sense of ownership I believe is important going forward with personal sensing technologies. We already see this now with things like the Nike+, which are as personal as you can get, since they are now part of clothing, etc. My only fear of technology such as this is, do we really NEED to sense every part of our lives and examine it?

Re: At Home and with Computer Access – Why and Where People Use Cell Phones to Access the Internet

Summary

Nylander et al. designed and conducted a diary and interview study with the aim of investigating the situations and comparative locations in which Internet use from cell phones takes place. According to the results of their research, mobile phones were not only used for accessing the Internet in situations where computers are not available, but in all kinds of situations.

Comments

A basic limitation of this study refers to the sample size and its representativeness. More specifically, the survey did not consider a wider selection of the Swedish mobile phone user population. Nevertheless, the study constitutes an exploratory type of research, implying that emphasis was placed on understanding the behavioural phenomena towards providing some generic user implications, rather than providing robust statistical results.

Future research can elaborate on the present study findings towards developing and testing corresponding research hypotheses within conclusive research designs (i.e., through descriptive or causal research approaches). For example, a potential hypothesis may investigate and test whether there are significant differences in the pattern of “mobile users” and “home users”. By examining the issues that the different types of users contend with, we can better understand how and why mobile phone internet use is growing and how public perception of mobile phones is shaped. Documentation of such behavior may provide new theoretical insights, and helps ground the design and user spaces of wireless communications technology.

Response: Consuming Video on Mobile Devices

The purpose of the paper is to explore various situations in which video content on the mobile phone is useful. The related work section shows that video content on the mobile phone is only viewed for a few minutes and found in two situations to avoid boredom at home or bus stops. Therefore this paper highlights some other situations when video viewing on the mobile device is useful:
Individual Viewing: As learnt earlier, they are used mostly to kill time, for e.g when traveling on a bus. In certain cases, to avoid looking odd sitting alone in a public place, people take out there devices. Sometimes, to avoid small talk with others and look busy. However, they say people do need to feel "settled" in order to watch a video, therefore, if they have a short period of free time they will not watch it or if they are distracted by the environment.
Coordinating Mobile Viewing with Family: Here the authors say that people do not get the time to watch their fav videos therefore, when they are picking up family members they can watch highlights of a game. Another point was that people have personal preferences due to which they can watch private content on the mobile device.
Watching at Home: While other family members are watching something on the TV that isnt your preference you can sit with them and watch what you like on the device.
Sharing the Experience: They gave an example of school kids watching a movie together in school. Giving them an opportunity to share something they all liked and discuss it. Similarly, you can keep family videos to share with friends and colleagues.
Owning and Exchanging Content: The authors found that how its a status quo to own and exchange content among school going kids.
Getting the Content: Finally the authors discuss how difficult it is to get content on the devices.

Review: I felt through out the paper that they were trying to exploit ways of getting media to play a role in our day to day lives. I understand the important of news, traffic reports, etc but media. Personally i didnt feel very comfortable with the examples they provided as well.

Response: At Home and with Computer Access

Summary:

The primary topic discussed in ‘At Home and with Computer Access’ was mobile usage. It discussed HOW users were using their mobile devices to access the Internet. The general results were that people most often used their phone for mobile access instead of their computers and that the most frequent location for cell phone Internet was at home. A deep analysis isn’t performed by the researchers, but does a small breakdown into the reasons for choosing mobile devices to access the Internet. Reasons included the lack of an available computer, convenience and laziness. Also broken down were the purposes for accessing Internet from a mobile device. These also included reading news, passing time and checking email. Overall however, a deeper analysis was not given, but the results indicated that

Response:

To me, this paper merely stated the obvious, that mobile device usage is increasing and is now the biggest method of consuming content on the Internet. The rise of mobile devices has been significant in the last 10-15 years. My one criticism of this paper was that the WHY content was accessed more by mobile devices than not. I think if the researchers examined the content, they could have found more interesting results. For instance, for some content, it is significantly easier to access and view information with a mobile device than a traditional desktop. Accessing news with the iPad (with magazine type apps) or sports videos (with a mobile application) is significantly easier and a better user experience than sitting on a desktop and doing the same. Thus, it is my belief that is CONTENT that is making this shift and not as much the availability of Internet for devices itself. Content is king, as they say.

Summary Response Week 8: Mobility

CPSC 601.25 Week 7 Part 1

Papers

In this response I will discuss a paper that looks at browser use on mobile phones and another which analyzes the social factors of mobile video watching.

Cutting the Cable

Prior the advent of smart-phones and good mp3 players, people typically interacted with their computers at their desks or perhaps on their laps. When mobile devices (iPhones and copycat phones, iPods, etc) became prevalent this changed. Intuition tells us that people would use their phones when a computer was not available, a computer has a bigger screen, a better keyboard, etc. But when the researchers in "At home with computer access" looked into the actual habits of users, they found that people were using their phones mostly at home. Since this contradicts our intuition, the result is interesting. The researchers directly asked the users why they were using their mobile phones and they found a variety of answers, including simple laziness. The researchers don't do much deeper analysis but it's possible that people are using their phones because the cognitive cost of going to the computer is just higher. Rather then seeing the devices as substitutes they are really complements because people might be doing tasks they wouldn't necessarily even do if they had to go to the computer.

Social Studies

The second paper reviewed, "consuming video on mobile devices" is older but offers much better analysis. In their study they reviewed the time diaries of participants but looked deeper into the social context that surround their use. They found, interestingly, that people often used mobile video as a way to avoid contact with others, such as on a bus or a train. Users used the devices in other contexts which were sometimes complex. The act of removing the device from their bag or putting it back also seemed to impact their choices, this is another example of the 'little costs' idea presented earlier.

Looking Forward

It would be interesting to see how many of the social factors have changed (and which have stayed the same) now the mobile devices have become smaller and incorporate many more functions. Rather then just viewing video people can surf the web, browse Facebook, and perform many other tasks with a device substantially smaller then a PSP. The enduring work in this paper might be on to the pretexts that certain activities provide. It would suggest for example, the checking email (without headphones) does not provide the same "social protection" as watching a movie.

Response March 1st

I think territoriality is an interesting discovery, particularly because I think it would hold across cultures (with more or less "flexibility"). I noticed that for instance, Canadians have a clear distinction of whose food belongs to whom, whereas a latino friend I recently met in Kingston described food the following way: "it's everyone's food, it just happens to be on your plate". I think this also holds for all sorts of interactions, we define a space that belongs to us due to proximity. I don't think this is restricted to tabletops, but also applies to any physical interaction. One could also see that if many users all have tablets, it is rare for people to go and interact on someone else's tablet unless they are actually sharing it.

However, to me, this principle totally dies in a groupware tabletop system, or a groupware system in general. As seen on Three's Company, laying the contents in different territory versus having the same space both have advantages and disadvantages. Yet, I think it is important to consider that when one is alone using a tabletop, one thinks he/she is using the whole space for interaction due to the absence of physicality.

Overall I think territoriality is a great way for understanding personal information vs. public information. Items that are close to me, belong to me, and areas in the public space can be dragged by someone into their own personal space. Now, I wonder if all the proxemic relations from Edward Hall would still apply for territoriality. I think this would be an interesting thing to explore.

Response Three's Company

This purpose of this paper was evaluate the need for video conferencing systems with groupware applications. In this paper categorized communication into three types:
Person Space: It is the personal interaction between coworkers to develop familiarity, relationship, and finally trust. 
Task Space: This space is the groupware application or any other shared information used for working together.
Reference Space: Through this space you provide awareness to others, through what you are doing in the task space, or by pointing, or referring to objects in the task space. 


Conclusions from the paper: 
It is not necessary to provide video conferencing for distributed collaboration and can be provided separate from the groupware application.
It was observed that arm shadows clutter the workspace when more than two users are on the groupware application-especially in a single side orientation.
Groupware application should provide support for reference space and they should be prominent, and clear.