Author(s):

Stasko, John; Miller, Todd; Pousman, Zachary; Plaue, Christopher; Ullah, Osman

Title:

Personalized Peripheral Information Awareness through Information Art

Publication:

Ubicomp 2004: Ubiquitous Computing 6th International Conference

Keywords:

adoption; ambient displays; appeal; attention; awareness; comprehension; conceptual models; design guidelines; discount evaluations; distraction; effectiveness; enjoyment; ethnographic study; field studies; heuristic evaluation; impact and side effects; interaction; interviews; transparency; interruption; invisibility; learnability; paper prototyping; participatory design; peripheral displays; personal expression; predictability of application behavior; qualitative research methods; self-reporting; transparency; satisfaction; user evaluation; utility

Paper Summary:

The authors expand on their initial study of InfoCanvas by conducting a longer, more in-depth study over the course of a two-month period. (See "Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? An Evaluation of Information Awareness Displays.")

The study included four participants who were initially interviewed to determine the types of information they monitor on a daily basis. After reviewing the information from the initial interviews, the project team met with each participant to conduct a paper prototyping session. During this session, participants were able to create their own design which was later used to customize an InfoCanvas for each participant.

Participants were then asked to use the system over a two-month period. During the trial, participants were interviewed weekly to learn more about their usage of the system.

The results of the study illustrated that participants enjoyed having the InfoCanvas in their offices and thought it was a useful way to display information. All participants reported that they used the InfoCanvas frequently throughout the day. In addition, no one felt that the display was distracting or felt that it interrupted workflow.

Participants also reported that they did not have any difficulty remembering the mappings, regardless of how intuitive (or unintuitive) the data representations were. However, two participants did report some difficulty in interpreting some of the values on the display. Participants also commented that they wanted a way to get additional information, either by clicking on an icon or mousing over an image.

The authors conclude that even though the display does not follow all of the heuristics for ambient displays, such as a "consistent and intuitive mapping", the display is still successful in communicating information.

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