Mobile computing in the retail arena

  • Authors:

  • Erica Newcomb;Toni Pashley;John Stasko

  • Affiliations:

  • Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA;Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA;Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

Although PDAs typically run applications in a "stand-alone" mode, they are increasingly equipped with wireless communications, which makes them useful in new domains. This capability for more powerful information exchange with larger information systems presents a new situated context for PDA applications, and provides new design and usability evaluation challenges.In this work we examine how grocery shopping could be aided by a mobile shopping application that consumers access via a PDA while in a store. The interactive relationship between the physical space of the store and the human activity of shopping are crucial when designing for this application. To better understand this interaction, we studied people's grocery shopping habits, designed and evaluated prototypes, and performed usability tests within the shopping environment. This paper reveals our design process for this problem and a framework for designing and evaluating situated applications for mobile handhelds.