Image annotation using personal calendars as context
MM '08 Proceedings of the 16th ACM international conference on Multimedia
The calendar is crucial: Coordination and awareness through the family calendar
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
How routine learners can support family coordination
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Everyday activities and energy consumption: how families understand the relationship
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
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Everyday family life involves a myriad of mundane activities that need to be planned, scheduled, and coordinated. Paper calendars are one tool used by families to help stay organized; yet, the downside is they are only available in one location and can be hard to synchronize if multiple calendars are used. Digital calendars offer promise to overcome these challenges by making family calendaring information ubiquitously accessible. However, we do not yet know how to best design digital family calendars in order to meet the coordination needs of families. I address this problem through three research stages. First, I outline a model of interpersonal awareness that is derived from contextual studies of 29 individuals. This model reveals how and why people maintain an awareness of individuals from three social groupings: home inhabitants, intimate socials, and extended socials. It shows that interpersonal awareness is fundamentally different than workplace awareness; thus, interpersonal awareness groupware should be designed to meet a range of domestic, not workplace, needs. One of these needs is groupware for family calendaring. Second, I present an empirically-based understanding of family calendaring routines that is derived from contextual interviews with 44 families. I outline how a typology of calendars is used by three different family types--- Monocentric, Pericentric, and Polycentric---where the level of family member involvement in the calendaring routine varies. I also describe the content and annotations found on family calendars. This theory is then recast as guidelines for the design of digital family calendars that are ubiquitously available to help families overcome coordination challenges. Third, I outline the participatory design and evaluation of the LINC digital family calendar. LINC includes three systems: an awareness appliance for the home; LINC Web which allows family members to check the calendar from a web browser; and, LINC Mobile which supports calendar browsing on a mobile phone while out and about. Field trials of LINC with four families show that LINC is a viable alternative to paper calendars as it allows families to maintain the benefits of their existing calendar routine while extending it in ways not afforded by paper calendars.