Author(s):

Abowd, Gregory, D.; Mynatt, Elizabeth, D.

Title:

Charting Past, Present, and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing

Publication:

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

Keywords:

ubiquitous computing; natural interfaces; context-aware computing; capture and access; user evaluation; everyday computing; social acceptance; social implications; user interfaces

Reference:

Abowd, Gregory, D., and Elizabeth Mynatt D. "Charting Past, Present, and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing." ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. 7.1 (2000): 29-58.

Paper Summary:

The paper reviews the research conducted in:

• natural interfaces,
• context-aware computing, and
• automated capture and access.

The authors present research challenges for HCI researchers to pursue, including two application-independent issues: the social implications of ubiquitous computing and the evaluation of these systems.

The authors believe the challenges of evaluation are two-fold:

• predicting how new technologies will meet user needs and
• evaluating and observing the technology in use.

In order to predict how these new technologies will meet users' needs, the authors believe that project teams must conduct user research and point to two case studies which illustrate this point: Xerox PARC's Flatland and Audio Aura.

The second cross-cutting challenge the authors present is to evaluate the technology in the "context of authentic use". The authors believe it is necessary to develop and deploy a system in a realistic environment and point to the Classroom 2000 project as an example. Lastly, the authors suggest that task-centric evaluations for ubiquitous computing applications are inappropriate for informal everyday computing applications.

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