Paper Summary: |
This paper describes the design and findings from an ethnographic home study with the resulting conclusions.
The authors conducted a pilot ethnographic study with 10 families. The study consisted of two facilitators observing participants in their home environment, user interviews and scenario walkthroughs. Each study began with a shared meal followed by a walkthrough or tour of the home in which the participants described layout of the home and the activities that occur in each area of the home. After the home tour, the tour facilitators divided the families into adults and children. One study facilitator ran interviews with the adults, while the second conducted a similar interview with the children.
During the interviews, participants were asked to provide an overview of reoccurring tasks (both weekly and monthly activities). Next, the facilitators asked the participants to describe a typical day in their household by using a flannel board with felt pieces representing rooms, people, artifacts and activities.
Based on these ethnographic studies, the authors conclude that the current model for the PC (used in one place, in large blocks of time, by a single user concentrating on instrumental tasks) is inconsistent with the way families live and organize their household. Based on observations, families spend most of their time in "command, control and hang-out" spaces in the home, whereas PC's are typically located in office areas. In addition, users do not typically have large blocks of time, instead they have small blocks of time between various activities. Finally, families place great importance on intra-familial communication, whereas computers detract from these communication activities. The authors conclude that "ubiquitous computing in the form of small, integrated computational appliances supporting multiple collocated users throughout the home, is a more appropriate domestic technology than the monolithic PC."
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