Author(s):

Barkhuus, Loise; Dey, Anind

Title:

Is Context-Aware Computing Taking Control away from the User? Three Levels of Interactivity Examined

Publication:

Ubicomp 2003: Ubiquitous Computing 5th International Conference

Keywords:

adoption; appeal; context-aware computing; control; diary studies; field studies; interaction; interview; low-fidelity prototypes; mobile computing; participatory design; qualitative research methods; satisfaction; self-reporting; sensing systems; social acceptance; user evaluation; utility

Paper Summary:

The purpose of this paper is to describe a user evaluation of three types of interactivity within context-aware computing environments. The goal of the study was to test users' preferences for control versus allowing the system to sense the environment and make decisions. The three types of interactivity tested include:

1. Personalization.User specifies his/her own settings.

2. Passive Context-Aware.Device presents updated context information to users and allows users to decide how to change application behavior.

3. Active Context-Aware.Device autonomously changes the application behavior according to sensed information.

The study found that users' sense of control decreases when autonomy of the service increases. Although the authors expected that users would prefer personalization over the other forms of interactivity, in fact, users preferred the context-aware applications over personalized applications.

The authors conclude that users are willing to accept a large degree of autonomy from an application as long as the application's usefulness is greater than the cost of limited control.

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