Information to go: exploring in-situ information pick-up "in the wild"

  • Authors:

  • Hannu Kukka;Fabio Kruger;Vassilis Kostakos;Timo Ojala;Marko Jurmu

  • Affiliations:

  • MediaTeam Oulu, University of Oulu, Finland;MediaTeam Oulu, University of Oulu, Finland;Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, University of Madeira Sema and MediaTeam Oulu, University of Oulu, Finland;MediaTeam Oulu, University of Oulu, Finland;MediaTeam Oulu, University of Oulu, Finland

  • Venue:
  • INTERACT'11 Proceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part II
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

This paper presents a case study on the iterative design of a system for delivering in-situ information services to users' mobile devices using proximity-based technologies. The design advances from a questionnaire study of the users' attitudes and needs toward such information services via several incremental prototypes evaluated in a usability lab and at a university campus to the final version subjected to longitudinal evaluation "in-the-wild" in a city center. The final prototype is a hybrid interface where the users can select from an interactive public display the information services to be downloaded to their personal mobile devices over no-cost Bluetooth connection. The results include an empirical comparison of different models for delivering such information services, and a quantitative analysis of the usage of the system by the general public over a period of 100 days. Our findings suggest that multiple environmental factors strongly affect the usage of the system. Furthermore, the usage varies distinctly between different contexts, and there is a strong correlation between location and usage patterns. Finally, we present a number of guidelines for designing and deploying this type of hybrid user interfaces.