Mobile Community Design

Why we might want to build technologies to influence societal behavior

2008-04-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

Note: I wrote the following piece in 2002 and it was posted on my old site. I recently had a request to access it, so I have re-posted it here with minor modifications. It is more of a brainstorm than an article, but I think it poses some unusual and poignant questions worthy of further exploration.

Any society or culture has defining traits which differentiate it from others. They have social mores, traditions and patterns. Individuals in these societies rarely understand or notice the impact they have on the perception and actions of the whole (e.g. going to France and seeing a few people on the street and judging France but what you saw). Societies retain certain qualities because they are perpetuated through ritual, education, law, religion and other means.

So let's postulate a few ideas.

Hypothesis 1: If there are examples of a social phenomenon, then there are factors in that environment which caused them to occur and factors which perpetuate it.

Hypothesis 2: If there are examples on both ends of a spectrum for a social phenomenon, any point between them should also be feasible.

So at this point in the conversation we should define what the factors are that influence these societal differences. Presumably many things such as other people, weather, population density, traditions, information, personal experience, physical surroundings, work, stress and the tools we use affect how we act. I would like to focus on three of them: the people, the physical surroundings and the tools. If we combine hypotheses 1 and 2 we get a conclusion that not only are a wide variety of social behaviors possible, but that if we control the factors that cause them, we control how the society acts and the degree to which it does so.

Past examples of technology (human made tools) influencing behavior

Architecture: A building designed by a mathematician to have a high probability of interception on the walkways between buildings in a complex results in a higher productivity and large amounts of interdisciplinary work.
Napster: Creation of an easy to use software program enabling easy exchange of music files via the Internet results in large amounts of stealing.
Mobile phones: Creation of a mobile communication device results in greater levels of communication, and decreased loneliness and personal anxiety.
News: Propaganda campaigns hiding or trivializing the deaths of innocents result in continued deaths and lack of acknowledged responsibility (e.g. Hitler in Germany, US in Afghanistan)
Drugs: Opium introduction in China in the 1600s causes social dysfunction in communities (similar with crack in US in 1980s)
Transportation: Traffic lights on freeway onramps results in decreased gridlock by distributing traffic evenly along the road instead of in bunches or waves.
TV: Introduction of an ever-changing entertainment device in the home results in less time spent out-of-doors, decreased exercise, decreased interpersonal communication and room rearrangement.
Mobile phones: Introduction of cheap phone service among teenagers results in decreased planned coordination among groups and increased splitting into subgroups as a result of the impossibility of losing contact.
Internet: Introduction of a worldwide communication network constructed using code written in English, with a navigation method largely in English (and with English-only characters) results in increased use and learning of English.
the examples could go on, but it becomes obvious that nearly any piece of technology we create has some impact on what we do...

The problem with many of these technologies and their effects is the lack of planning. These are not technologies introduced with a realistic expectation of how they will affect society. It might be argued that we simply can't predict what impact they will have. An argument in favor of this is that the marketing team for any product will tell you that it will be an amazing success and change the world. This is obviously an unrealistic prediction. And yet in retrospect it seems like there should be ways to predict that the telephone would revolutionize the entire world and that the introduction of automobiles would have environmental effects. Some level of accurate prediction must be possible.

Scenarios of manipulation

Here are a few examples of specific types of technology which could be designed using current technology and some potential sociological effects of their use:

Introduce small, untraceable, peer-to-peer mobile communication devices into the citizenry of a country under dictatorial rule, resulting in decreased government control and increased likelihood of overthrow.
Introduce inexpensive/easy/personal/portable voting systems for all citizens and have impromptu votes on current events such as opinions about going to war. Allow the public as well as leaders to view the results as they come in. Resulting in less time to manipulate public opinion and decreased likelihood of leaders acting on their own wishes.
Technology providing immediate notification of whether a crime has been reported in the immediate vicinity. Resulting in the possibility of citizens responding immediately and possibly reduced crime.
Public communication medium targeted towards people in a particular neighborhood. Resulting in increased friendships, responsibility, understanding and coordination.

Some additional areas that might be influenced

Distribution of wealth
Type of content read
Awareness of global events
Type and levels of social interaction
Type and levels of transportation usage
Teen pregnancy
Marital abuse
Illegal drug use
Water usage
Donations
Awareness of accurate group behavior and characteristics
Perception of public opinion
Murder rates
Perceptions of materialism and consumerism

Future steps

Moral and ethical issues rapidly come to mind as one considers the idea of technology being used to influence people's behavior. Whether it happens consciously or unconsciously really isn't the issue, although the latter might be more dangerous. In either case the society is affected. A cynical response might be that marketing agencies have been manipulating public opinion and habits for a century or more (to some degree even unconsciously) and there hasn't been a public outcry. There's not much reason to think new types of technology would be any different.

Creating technology with the specific aim of altering the social behavior of a target group of users in a particular way could be considered Societal Engineering. Presumably this has been done many times in the past, such as experiments with different types of governments or different laws passed to control behavior. However I think this type of Influential Technology allows for more detailed manipulation and increased complexity of effects.

I believe industrial buildings such as factories (maybe houses now too?) have to get an Environmental impact statement. This document predicts what effect the development will have on surrounding plants, animals and the like. Perhaps we need the same thing for other types of technology we create.

Related concepts

Persuasive computing
Affective technology
Social campaigns such as the grape boycott in the USA or AIDS awareness.

Thanks to Astrid and Jay for comments and ideas.

The Kindle User Experience

2008-03-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

I've managed to borrow a friend's Kindle and take it for a test drive. The following is a minimalist overview of the user experience of this visionary little device.

Packaging/Unboxing

The appearance of the box is designed to mimic the structure of a book, which is clever considering it mollifies the paper book lovers and intimates that using the kindle will be something like reading a normal book
The outside already has simple visual instructions on what to do with the device once the box is opened. This prepares the user before they have the question - very nice.

Initial impressions of Hardware

The buttons are nicely labeled and reasonably ergonomically placed
The device isn't exactly ugly, but it also doesn't scream beautiful either. A few more smooth corners, something other than white, and something other than a cheap plastic texture might help it feel more personal and intimate.
The previous and next page buttons are very easy to click accidentally because they stretch all the way to the edge of the device. The thumbs naturally sit inside of the edge, so the buttons could be placed further in from the edge for page navigation, leaving the edge for holding the device itself.
The keyboard has flat angled keys that click in a cheap plastic fashion. If this keyboard had round, slightly convex keys with a more satisfactory press it would be much easier to type on.
The Home key will be a heavily used function, but it is a small button hidden at the bottom of the keyboard. A row of larger shortcut keys above the normal keyboard would greatly aid accessing common functions and initially finding access to the home screen.
The SD memory card slot is extremely difficult to find. A label on the back cover indicating "slide this direction" would not be wasted effort.
It is just heavy enough that I feel afraid to drop it.
The size and placement of the prev/next buttons are a mystery. There are a number of different hand placements that are possible: both hands high on the sides, or more commonly placed low on the sides within easy reach of the keyboard. The buttons are within easy reach, but moving backwards through a book is very uncommon - it doesn't need to be within easy reach. The small back button on the right seems a bit superfluous and all of the buttons are very easy to hit by accident.
There isn't a screen light option. While there are technological limitations of passive screens, clearly a strong benefit of having an electronic book is that you shouldn't need a light. A small LED light embedded in the top of the lid would be a battery drain but would offer a much more flexible range of reading options.

Inital Use

The scroll wheel is an unorthodox but fairly intuitive navigation system. Clearly they needed a way to select a range of items on the screen, but didn't have a touch screen available with the e-ink screen. Any form of indirect manipulation (e.g. a mouse) takes some getting used to and tends to be less intuitive than directly touching a screen, but this isn't a bad compromise.
The contrast on the small silver strip in the scroll bar doesn't provide good contrast and would be much easier to see if it were black.
The scroll wheel can be pressed to make a selection. There is no label to indicate this, and new users don't necessarily stumble onto it immediately.

Extended Use

Load time and loading feedback are poor. Skipping to a new page flashes the screen black and loads a new page, which is fine. But for other activities such as looking up a word definition can take 5 seconds with very little visual indication that anything is occurring. Loading web sites has a similar problems of long delays with little feedback.
The range of feature mimicking informal use of real books is well done. Highlighting, looking up definitions, and scrawling notes in the margins all have digital equivalents.
The online ordering and shopping system are a breeze. If only phone manufacturers had realized they need to make a seamless online ordering experience for phone software. This is probably the single most impressive feature of the Kindle. For them to offer a free unlimited wireless ordering system which is pretty much operational out of the box is a major accomplishment both from a design and business deal standpoint. This is a case of the desired user experience driving business models, contractual agreements and underlying hardware and software architecture.
All in all, the device feels very simple, and yet has quite a few features packed into it. This is an impressive feat for the design team to pull off.
There are quite a few functions buried under the 'Menu' option, and some of those options lead to more navigation screens. It probably would have been more effective to simply have a standalone 'menu' key, which led to a full screen list of options. This would be much faster to access and reduce navigational complexity.
I like the 'experimental' section. It's like Google being in Beta. They can play there and not promise a perfect user experience.

Using your own content

Maybe I'm a special case, but a primary reason I would want an electronic reading device is to be able to read my own electronic content away from my computer. Much of this content is in PDF files. After laboriously opening the case and transferring some PDF files to the SD card, I tried to find them. They don't show up automatically in the 'content manager' as one would expect.
I was unable to find any files on the SD card in either the main book listing or the content manager, and had to go to the Amazon site.
Interestingly there isn't a help system on this device. For a device with a large screen, a keyboard, and free Internet access, there really is no excuse for this. There is a 'Users' Guide' in the electronic book listing, but this has all the problems of a typical book: sequential arrangement and no search. And for specific questions, an online discussion forum or index of common questions would be much more useful.
It turns out (after accessing the Amazon Kindle help system via my desktop computer) that PDF is not natively supported. Instead you have to email Amazon to get a PDF converted and sent to your device. This isn't a bad option, but they claim that many PDFs don't work because of a "fixed size format". PDFs work at any size because they allow zooming into the content. With a fairly high resolution screen such as the Kindle, this wouldn't be a problem in theory. However, given the lack of a touch screen and the lack of zoom in/out keys, this would pose a serious challenge for the current navigation and input systems of the Kindle.

Use Case Rating

As an experimental method, I'd like to try rating this device based on 'use cases' or tasks which are either highly important or very common for the device.

Summary and Digressions

Overall this is a very impressive version 1.0 device. It didn't make any serious usability mistakes. It optimized for the most common tasks: reading a book, shopping and purchasing a book, and annotating a book. It places the customer experience foremost. The complexity of a new hardware technology (e-ink screen) and an enormous book shopping and purchasing service were not allowed to infringe on a simple user experience - that says something about the structure of the Amazon development team, because this is very difficult to pull off in most large companies.

I am really disappointed that they didn't find a better solution for reading personal content. Tablet computers are very expensive and difficult to use. The Kindle offers the potential of freeing us from our desktops to read whatever we want, but it doesn't quite get us there in the same usable fashion as the pre-packaged content. Perhaps this feature was simply too technically challenging to pull off on the first try, but it would clearly attract many more users due to the flexibility and freedom it would offer users.

The hardware itself has some novel input and output devices. The overall effect is fairly simple (which is great for a device this complex) but still feels very awkward and fragile. Some better button placement, a new keyboard and a different exterior finish would do wonders for the device. Also something that looked a little more like a piece of art and less like an engineering prototype might be in order.

Another thing Amazon seems to have missed along with most other mobile device manufacturers, is that numerous connected mobile devices can form user communities. There is apparently no features on the Kindle itself that link me to the book reviews of my friends, or that allow me to rate the books I've read from my device and have it recorded on my Amazon account. Electronic book clubs could sponsor cheaper books and share reviews linked from the book itself. I could publish my own content from my Kindle to a larger community on Amazon. The opportunities for connecting people engaged in the activity of reading are huge, but currently the device doesn't really support it - even in the "experimental" section.

I'm really looking forward to 2.0.

(Thanks to Vince for the Kindling action)

Building a Path For Future Communities

2008-01-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is a draft copy of a chapter I will be submitting for inclusion in a book, which is a compilation of research and design articles titled ‘Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems’ to be published in 2008. I would appreciate any corrections or comments so that I can integrate them into the final version. If any of you have already suffered reading through my thesis, you may want to skip sections 3 and 4 which re-use some of the original content.

Abstract

With mobile technologies increasingly weaving themselves into the fabric of our communities, it would be beneficial to increase our understanding of how these devices will affect our quality of life. This chapter presents a case study where a set of prototypes of future social technology concepts were generated and used by groups of backpackers in a mobile community. One of these concepts, which facilitated viewing the locations of other group members, is evaluated with regard to how it might affect community development.

This and other examples illustrate that communication technologies form a social path which guides individual and emergent behavior of societies. Determination of where these paths lead can be accomplished through the creation of development projects with positive social aims. Using collaborative research methods, considering design outcome spectra, and adding features with implicit cultural values are promising strategies for influencing future communities.

Full draft version:
PDF 3.2M

Excerpts from the paper:

"Social technologies are analogous to a path or sidewalk we take through a park or university. The path suggests a direction and location of travel. Many people follow it because it is easier, safer, and more socially acceptable. However, people are also free to take deviations from the path to explore, challenge, or provide variety, and some do. The path itself was probably designed with some forethought and it greatly influences the majority of people who use the space. Communication technologies provide similar paths by which individuals get to the destination of forming groups and communities. The following sections explore how these social paths should be constructed and what factors affect how they are used."

"The determination of reasonable social paths is a combination of more thoughtful technology development, humanist social policies regulating technology deployments, and self-regulation by users through choice in usage and purchasing power. By virtue of being first in the process, designers lay the path which users tend to follow, and have the resulting responsibility to guide them to a prosperous destination."

Beyond a Timepiece

2007-11-24T05:40:00.000-08:00

There is a device that you already have. You may wear it in the shower and when you sleep. You may touch it, or have it close at hand 24 hours a day. You wear it as a highly visible fashion excessory. Of course, we are discussing the common wrist watch.

More abstractly, the watch provides a sense of grounding and regularity in a busy world. It is also important to note that it is inherently a social device. Humanity created systems of portraying and tracking time, primarily to enable standard and efficient coordination of schedules. Thus, knowing you are on time means: you will get to see that important person, your boss won't fire you for being late, your first date will get off to a good start. Watches at their core are intimate, practical and social.

Since we have a device with such strong potential, why is it primarily still the timepiece it was 200 years ago? To be fair, there has been some exploration of the watch design space. Swatch has recognized that the device has reached a mature stage where they can turn it into a pure fashion excessory that in many cases is actually unusable for it's original purpose. HP introduced the calculator watch, which did show a desire for increased functionality, but had functions and an appearance many people didn't want. Similarly, Suunto has turned them into huge sport-specific computers such as diving watches.
However, during this recent phase of innovation in watches, we still have the round passive display, four cryptic non-labled buttons, and a primary focus on either an analog or digital time representation. Neither the interface nor the functionality has really seen much innovation for the majority of watch owners. I personally think this is a shame for a technology and form factor that has so much potential - so I've done a design brainstorm on the topic.

Imagine if our watches could do the following:

call for help in emergencies,
tell us where we are (not just when it is),
give us directions,
tell us when our friends are near,
help us communicate with our friends, and meet up with them,
pay our bill at the table,
find the nearest food,
remember crucial personal personal ID, login information, and prove our identity,
keep a shopping list for us, and
remind us of appointments.

In short, why isn't the technology which we have closest to us every day helping us with the activities that we need to do every day? The following are a few design sketches to show what would be possible.

There are a variety of different form factors and input/output devices possible.

Small and mobile doesn't have to mean static and disconnected.

Four buttons and abbreviated labels isn't the only option.

Re-thinking the Notepad

2007-07-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

Often designers (and perhaps society in general) focuses too much on what we have figured out how to build, and incremental improvements, instead of noticing big glaring holes in what we have built or not built. I could digress about automatic language translation and teleportation devices, but instead I'll focus on something we haven't built that is currently feasible - an electronic notepad.

Some tools such as the paper notepad are custom-suited for assisting our ability to communicate complex ideas to other people and to be creative. These tools are particularly helpful when the concepts are still being formed or are inherently complex in nature. Extending and innovating how these creativity-enhancing devices could operate has a high potential for dramatically changing and improving society and work. Thus I think it qualifies as an interesting problem worthy of further thought.

The electronic notepad is the negative space in the collaborative and creative tools technology market. It doesn't receive the attention it deserves, probably because it doesn't exist yet. So this is a rumination on what we should build.

The notepad below is A5 size. It has no lines and a great deal of storage space. It doesn't require charging. I can show it to several people around a table and draw ideas while talking to illustrate concepts. I can enter text and graphics very rapidly in it. It is cheap. But it also can't be exported into my e-mail well. I can't enter text into it as fast as I can on a laptop. It doesn't have a built-in dictionary. It does run out of space about once a month. Perhaps most critically, I can't rapidly run a search for a concept within it or the larger collection of notepads. I also can't easily take content from it, and get it into another notepad for someone else to use.

It may be useful to investigate how we currently use paper notepads to guide the design of a digital version. As it happens, I am currently working on a book chapter. While sitting in a coffee shop I did a little brainstorming for the content, argument structure and purpose of the article in the above notebook. We have no electronic tools that support this type of creative activity well currently. How would society be different if every academic, business person, student and designer had an efficient mobile tool to brainstorm and collaborate with?

Based on this example, such a device needs to be able to support:

rapid positioning of text
rapid creation of imperfect graphics, including arrows
separation of some regions from other regions
bolding and highlighting of key concepts
formatting of concepts into lists
ability to remind oneself about relationships and importance for later use

Preferably it does all this in the same unstructured-entry based paradigm as the original notepad, and adds more functionality without hindering the primary goals of the device. It can be simple and unsophisticated in many ways. It could be monochrome only. It would benefit from a non-backlit screen with a rougher texture similar to paper. It only stores low resolution images and text so it doesn't need much storage. It might not need wireless; SD cards could handle data distribution at first. However a Bluetooth link to your phone for rapidly e-mailing notes would be useful. This is a low-tech device with a huge potential. Obviously a simple usable design is critical since unnecessary complexity will make it harder to use than the original paper version. A usability requirement is that it must be at least as fast and effective for key tasks as the original paper version.

So what does the new device look like? With a nod to the slim and pleasing design of the iPhone, I give you the ImagiPad.

This future device is primarily an information appliance. It is designed for note taking and collaborative thinking. It is not a desktop computer shrunk into a tablet. It isn't primarily built to play games, read e-mail or surf web sites. It is built to effectively and usably allow entry and communication of ideas, reformulation of those concepts in real-time, and later storage and distribution of those ideas. Thus it is fundamentally different from tablet computers currently on the market and closer to some of the e-book concepts.

Anybody interested in creating this very cool and world-changing device?

* The content of the mockup shows that the device could actually be used to design the next version of itself, which demonstrates that it would truly be a useful tool (and it's a fun recursive exercise).

The problem with the iPhone

2007-06-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write an article on the much hyped iPhone, but now that Engadget and Dvorak have taken a pass at it, I figured it was time to for a more detailed design analysis.

Disclaimer: I increasingly think designers don't sympathize enough with other designers during design reviews. It is often possible to think up an excellent design: but given the realities of limited research time, small budgets, marketing pressure, development politics, technical limitations and power within the organization, it is a wonder we ever get anything that is truly designed well. So take this with a grain of salt.

The iPhone appears to have done a lot of things right. They have turned the phone into a small tablet computer. Objects on its screen can be intuitively touched and manipulated. Objects and tasks that inherently have complexity or larger size are reasonably accommodated with zoom and pan with minimal delay. They are integrating local features (e.g. your voice calls) with remote features (e.g. a google map phone number) and making it seamless. They have also integrated the music with the phone so that you don't have to carry two devices (this has been done before, but not in a format that is actually very useful).

This would all be great if they hadn't missed the main future growth area of mobile devices: non-voice communication. Every great killer app on the Internet involved a communication medium (e.g. e-mail, web, Instant Messaging). Voice is old-school. It has many usability and sociability problems. It is slow. It is difficult to use in many situations. It annoys people. It is synchronous (with the exception of voice mail which is expensive, slow, and poorly designed). The new generation of communication and collaboration tools (wikis, blogs, forums, instant messaging, tagging systems) are all about text. So shouldn't a new "visionary" mobile device handle text input well?

As the above image depicts, the iPhone has a lot features requiring extensive, detailed, text entry. It is also missing instant messaging which is heavily used by both teens and in business environments. How are we supposed to be entering all of this text? Via a small cramped (not even horizontal) touch keyboard, without haptic feedback, using one finger at time.

Are these Apple designers insane? Is there such a thing as carpal tunnel in the pointer finger? I think they're going to invent it.

If you watch Job's keynote he demonstrates typing while finding a Starbuck's via search query. He actually prepares the audience for if he mistypes the name of the restaurant; however, he does manage to get it right and you can practically hear his sigh of relief.

Now, to be fair, input devices for mobile devices have long been a major problem. Apple has at least removed the tired 9-key number keypad that is rarely used for anything anymore (who actually remembers and dials phone *numbers* in this day and age?). But touch screens aren't ideal for text entry. Other companies (such as Helio and I-Mate) have been thinking about this problem and have come up with a somewhat obvious, and mildly clunky, although workable, solution of offering two kinds of hardware keyboards in the same device.

A number keypad slides out of the Helio Ocean for the rare times when you need to enter a phone number (This really points to the large usability problem of not being able to easily exchange phone numbers. This is often done by initiating an incomplete call or sending a text message, but it should be easier). This keyboard could be safely removed and replaced with an on-screen touch keypad for it's infrequent use.

The Ocean also has another QWERTY keyboard that slides out the side which supports reasonably usable longer text entry. This is also similar to Danger's Sidekick 3, which was designed with instant messaging real-time conversations in mind. I have used this phone for a year and the keyboard is passable, but definitely not ideal for typing longer e-mails or IM conversations.

So where are we going with mobile devices?

Danger is actually ahead of the game, but not just because of their text-communication-capable phone which has been on the market for at least 3 years. It's because they are designing a 'mobile experience', not a mobile device. They even have a web page discussing the strategy. They don't just offer a phone, they offer services for data backup, system updates, online ordering and viewing of phone data on a remote server via the web.

Apple is headed the same direction with partnering with ATT to improve the usability of voicemail (not worth the time in my opinion, it is fundamentally flawed). But Apple isn't marketing this phone as an experience outside of the phone features themselves. The phone needs to be designed to integrate with your life: all of the activities that you do and the people you communicate with. Helio has direct integration with MySpace, an online community site. They are taking steps toward integrating you with your social network via text.

Text and voice both have their problems. As many sci-fi writers have envisioned, ideally you would be able to think and have it navigate a device, or enter the text that you dictate. We're not there yet (but it is in the works). And for the record, that will still result in a lot of usability problems and design challenges. But until we get to that, what would the ideal mobile device support?

It would have a multi-touch screen. One model is small and pocket size. The other is A5 paper size and is similar to a small tablet computer. The larger one supports certain complex tasks in a more efficient manner.
It would support longer text entry. Initially a slide-out QWERTY is reasonable. Plug-n-play integration with a keyboard and external monitor should be supported for more complex tasks when a stationary device is available. Wireless integration would be better.
Support for group collaboration and communication via software specifically designed for this task. (Get away from the idea of synchronous calls between two people.) Support community participation and notifications.
Support sketching and conversion between this and text and voice. Notepads still get used because there is nothing better for taking notes and drawing ideas.
Design the whole customer experience and then let it evolve with close attention to user needs. Phone manufacturers and phone companies and data backup third-parties and online community operators can't approach this piecemeal. The user of a phone doesn't know who provides a specific feature (or who caused a specific problem) and doesn't care.

So in summary, Apple is as-usual providing disruptive technology. This will be good for the market. It's a beautiful machine too. But they've missed a huge mobile growth area: text entry and communication mediums enabled by it. iPhone users will rapidly realize how tedious a small on-screen keyboard is to use. Hopefully this will prod the UMPC and tablet manufacturers to reduce the size of their tablet computers and start thinking about them as mobile communication/collaboration devices, instead of desktop computers crammed into a touch screen.

Update: 6/28
Apple has posted a video explaining a bit more about the on-screen keyboard and corresponding usability. It turns out to be reasonably sophisticated, particularly in how it resizes buttons on the fly based on statistical probability of certain letters coming next in words. However, the fact that they have actually added this as a feature indicates that hitting the wrong letter is a significant problem. They state several times that it is "faster than most other small keyboards", but they neglect to say what an upper-bound on WPM is using two fingers, or how it compares with wider hardware keyboard (e.g. Sidekick and Ocean) WPM entry rates. My guess is that it is slower and has higher error rates. They could have improved text entry speeds by widening the keyboard; this would be most easily accomplished by remapping the keyboard to horizontal mode. Since the iPhone already senses it's orientation I wouldn't be surprised to hear about a hack or custom application that allows re-orienting the keyboard for faster text entry (at the expense of reduced room for seeing entered text). It is however nice to see that Apple did put some thought into innovating the touch keyboard, which wasn't obvious in previous presentations.

Update: 7/16
I've had a chance to use the iPhone. Overall it's impressive in many areas, but my predictions about the keyboard are accurate. It's better than an old number keypad with t-9 but it is cramped, slower to type with, and easily and frequently results in errors. This will make the device difficult to use for many social Internet applications.

Here's a usability study of it by User Centric.
"Participants uniformly found text entry SMS and email to be difficult. They were frustrated by the forced use the vertical keyboard and the lack of visibility for editing the middle of a word or sentence."
"Finally, participants were surprised (and somewhat annoyed) to discover that horizontal text entry was available only in in the Safari browser."

Thesis now available

2007-03-12T14:08:00.001-07:00

Well, the Ph.D. thesis has finally gotten through the steps of completion, examination, acceptance, printing and final award. Phew! One of the more amusing stages of this was where the printing office wanted an encrypted, read-only PDF of the thesis made for transmission and storage. This is for a public thesis which one would hope is read as widely as possible with excerpts taken as needed. Also intriguing is the fact that the 3 paper copies of the thesis practically disappear within the university (the main copy you can find on the unlabeled bookshelf on the 3rd floor of the Electrical Engineering building with no check-out policy for the volumes). One wonders if new research actually gets read by anyone.

So, bypassing all that bureaucracy with a little grass-roots effort, I have made a simple normal (unencypted, able to copy excerpts) PDF and posted it here on my blog. This thesis deviates from the norm slightly in that it has embedded weblinks to most pictures. So the full-size versions of images in the text are available on a web site.

A few notes:

Yes, it does have two quotes from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in it.
It is 97,000 words, which is long by some standards and short by others.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Download the entire thesis here:

Methods of Understanding and Designing For Mobile Communities

Abstract

Society is increasingly on the move, mobile devices are commonly being used to coordinate group actions, and group communication features are rapidly being added to existing technologies. Despite this, little is known about how mobile groups act, or how communications technologies should be designed to augment existing behaviour. This is partially due to minimal research being done on the topic, but also to the lack of research methods available to study the topic with. Mobile groups are challenging to study because of frequent and long-duration movement, frequent distribution, and the rapidly changing environments they operate within. To address these issues, this research focuses on methodological issues surrounding the development of mobile devices for mobile groups and communities. More specifically it addresses backpackers, who are a relevant example of this type of community. The research primarily explores the convergence of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) and the field of mobile device development. This enables the combination of emphasis on designing technologies for groups, social implications, mobile device design, and mobile settings.

Major research outcomes presented in this thesis lie in three areas: 1) methods, 2) technology designs, and 3) backpacker culture. Five studies of backpacker behaviour and requirements form the core of the research. The methods used are in-situ and exploratory, and apply both novel and existing techniques to the domain of backpackers and mobile groups.

Methods demonstrated in this research include: field trips for exploring mobile group behaviour and device usage, a social pairing exercise to explore social networks, contextual postcards to gain distributed feedback, and blog analysis which provides post-hoc diary data. Theoretical contributions include: observations on method triangulation, a taxonomy of mobility research, method templates to assist method usage, and identification of key categories leading to mobile group requirements. Design related outcomes include: 57 mobile tourism product ideas, a format for conveying product concepts, and a design for a wearable device to assist mobile researchers.

Our understanding of backpacker culture has also improved as a consequence of the research. It has also generated user requirements to aid mobile development, methods of visualising mobile groups and communities, and a listing of relevant design tensions. Additionally, the research has added to our understanding of how new technologies such as blogs, SMS and iPods are being used by backpackers and how mobile groups naturally communicate.

Social Responsibility and Theoretical Choice - Part 6

2007-01-28T20:40:00.000-08:00

Potential Solutions: Subversive Technologies and Impact Statements

Three major factors bring an influence to bear on technology adoption: a) technology developers b) governmental legislation c) users. Developers (or designers) have more control over their own behaviour than that of the latter two. However, participatory design did have a stage where it was more concerned with political legislation than design (Helander et al., 1997, p. 303) and this is another possible avenue for designers interested in improving the quality of life of workers and users. Users themselves will ultimately choose to use technologies in a largely unpredictable and emergent fashion, so it may not always be possible to design humane environments for them. There are also other options such as boycotts or protests which seek to rally large numbers of users to change their behaviour in unison to influence manufacturers and governments. However, designers primarily will have control over the processes they use, the products that are produced, and the types of actions those products enable and encourage. There is an unofficial class of products known as ‘subversive technologies’, which either by design or not, have the ability to change power structures in societies. These products are often highly adaptable or offer high-level functions which are generally applicable. They often offer new forms of communication, and frequently they are inexpensive and difficult to censor and regulate. Primary examples of subversive technologies include mobile phones, e-mail, the Internet, camera phones and peer-to-peer networks. It may be that it is the actual structure of the technology which is more socially important than the design process used, or the intended use of the technology, although these are certainly related. It may be better to give users technologies which enable them to organise, analyse situations, form strategies, and represent and defend themselves than to attempt to prescribe future humane usage situations.

Another option is to predict the likely elements of technology adoption and make it public prior to the completion of technologies. This is the equivalent of an environmental impact assessment for software and hardware. An environmental impact assessment is a report completed by those proposing a new development (such as a buildings, freeways, landfills) before it occurs . It uses scientific methods to predict potential levels of environmental damage or change. A part of this is sometimes a social impact assessment, which attempts to predict likely social consequences of the development. A related concept is an environmental impact statement which is used by the US federal government to discuss the likely impact on the human environment which major projects pose. This formal documentation integrates the activity of predicting the future impact of new technologies on human and environmental quality into regular development processes. Its public disclosure allows it be evaluated by communities to determine how implementation should be managed. It is surprising that software and hardware which permeates offices, homes, cafes, and clothes, and which mediates our communications, is being distributed without similar safeguards or public inquiry. An ‘environmental and social impact statement’ for technology products could become a bureaucratic step which hinders innovation, but it could also be a tool by which communities could regulate technology adoption to retain reasonable levels of quality of life. There is an interesting irony here that it may be much harder to predict the impacts of subversive technologies due to their malleability and uncontrollable nature. The development of such an impact statement is beyond the scope of this thesis and would be a good topic for future research.

These solutions could easily be applied to travel technologies. In 50 years backpacking will undoubtedly be different than it is now, and presently it is different than it was 50 years ago. At any stage it would have been possible to find backpackers who nostalgically desired a return to a previous style of travelling. Likewise, it is also possible to find backpackers who are dissatisfied with current travel problems and desire a future form of travel that is not yet available. The free market solves some of these problems by offering products which are successful if people wish to use them, and thus purchasing power is used to vote for various technologies. New mobile technologies will undoubtedly change the future of backpacking, just as e-mail, airplanes and credit cards have changed it previously. It is less an issue of resisting change, but instead managing it in a way that is socially desirable. Backpackers may find subversive open source mobile communication solutions in the future which allow them to invent an entirely new definition of what it is to be a backpacker and create a new backpacking experience. It may also be that government tourism agencies would benefit from creating their own mobile software to encourage tourism. Producing an environmental and social impact statement for this type of product would allow backpackers and locals to help shape the future of backpacking.

The completes the series of posts on the topic of theory's affect on design. I'm currently formulating a post on (what else?) the iPhone which has some critical flaws to it - so stay tuned for that!

Social Responsibility and Theoretical Choice - Part 5

2007-01-12T20:39:00.000-08:00

Where is Our Technology Design Leading Us?

As demonstrated in the above example of the US government seeking to influence the design of new technologies, there are decisions being made about what work roles should be replaced, who has control over the creation of new technology, and what values it will represent. The design processes we use also have a similar effect. Technological determinism is a term sometimes used to describe this technological change (Feenberg, 1999). This theory has weak and strong versions, with the latter advocating that new technologies follow their own unquestionable evolutionary path and that humanity needs to adapt to the needs of scientific progress. The more commonly advocated weak version stipulates that while new technologies do influence behaviour, there is also another significant effect of people deciding which technologies to create and how to use them. Some social science researchers are on the other end of the spectrum and believe that personal choice and environmental situations are the primary controlling factors of technology development and use (Arnold, 2003). This perspective dismisses the history of progressive technology advancement and successful predictive formulae such as Moore’s Law (Fitts & Posner, 1967) which are based on the premise that new advancements in science will result in the predictable growth of new technologies. For example, some of the most stable predictions in technology design are that devices will get smaller, more powerful and more efficient. When these powerful handheld devices are delivered into the hands of customers by hardware and software vendors, they will have an impact on employment roles, social relations and governments. People will make some decisions about how to use these devices, but they will be constrained by the physical limitations of the devices and tempted to use the features which are easy and inexpensive.

Thus it seems that there is a balance in responsibility between those who are designing and selling devices, governments which regulate their practices, and users of these technologies who decide what is desired and socially acceptable. Clearly we do not want situations where introduction of new technologies results in members of the surrounding community living in inhumane conditions. However we should also remember that the introduction of a new technology was not the significant factor in the Luddite rebellion. Instead it was unethical business owners and a government which did not enact laws to support a healthy economic climate in which people could find quality work. The older textile technology of the wooden frame was used to exploit workers, just as the new automated machinery was after it. However, some technologies do change workers job roles more than others; for example enhancements to frames were not as disruptive as entirely new shearing frames. However, it is the way that business owners choose (or are regulated) to use available technologies and treat their employees, which greatly influences the quality of life of workers. Thus it is quite possible that we as designers could use completely humane design theories, which produce a mutually satisfactory product, which is then implemented in a profit-driven fashion by industry, which results in the abuse of workers. Thus it must be remembered that design theory and methods is only a small part of the bigger picture of humane sociotechnical systems.

Next Post: Potential Solutions: Subversive Technologies and Impact Statements

Social Responsibility and Theoretical Choice - Part 4

2007-01-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

Social Implications of Technology Use on Backpacker Culture

As with all technologies, the tourism technologies proposed in this thesis would change the environments they are introduced into, and the behaviour of the people using them. There are elements of this which are reasonably predictable and elements which are not. For example, community authoring poses challenges for existing models of creating guidebooks. It could be that backpackers on the road will generate more current, accurate, and detailed information than professional authors had previously provided. This could easily result in the replacement of experienced paid authors with an inexperienced swarm of unpaid travel authors. It is also true that professional authors work hard and provide insightful, useful and comprehensive overviews, and that this may not be matched by amateurs. This could result in a competition between the two authorship paradigms. This scenario would be likely to result in a shift in the focus of professional authors, or perhaps the gradual elimination of this job role.

Similarly there is a small portion of the backpacker population who genuinely want to experience untainted foreign cultures, isolate themselves from home, travel without a guidebook and use only the most basic travel equipment. Because of the increase in Internet cafes, backpackers carrying mobile phones, and the number of backpackers, it is increasingly hard for these people to find the travel experience they are looking for (Huxley, 2005). This is analogous to the increasing difficulty of finding new species on a planet that does not hold many unexplored locations. The technologies I am proposing in this research would make it easier and safer to travel, which would increase travellers’ confidence in going to more remote locations (and thus increase their impact on the destinations). It would enhance the group-formation abilities of backpackers travelling alone, which could result in more group activities and more partying. The ability to e-mail, call and instant message from a mobile device carried in a pocket could result in backpackers connecting more with people at home or from a similar culture, instead of actively engaging in the cultures in which they are travelling.

So what is the aim of our technology design? Should we follow the path of the Luddites and destroy the Internet cafes and mobile phones? Should we protect the guidebook authors and instead of replacing them with community authoring technologies, seek ways to improve the quality of their reportage? Should we design technologies which help to reduce the ability for others to contact backpackers and guide a minority of backpackers to pristine unexplored locations? All of these options are theoretically possible, but it depends on what social aims we have, where sufficient markets are, and how much of the result we can predict. It may well be that guidebook authors will go the way of human traffic directors and telephone switchboard operators. Is this a natural evolutionary process, or is it a role which is respected in society to the degree that we wish to protect it when it is obsolete?

Next Post: Where is Our Technology Design Leading Us?

Holiday MP3 Player Trivia

2006-12-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

If you have a spare moment in your holiday revelries, why not tell me how you use your MP3 player! I'm currently designing a mobile interface and could use some input. Your responses are anonymous and if I get enough responses I'll post the answers here on the blog.

Please only answer if you use a portable mp3 player such as an iPod, Zune, iRiver, etc.

Questions:

1) Which pocket do you carry it in when you are listening to it (left, right, front back, shirt, etc).

2) If you don't carry it in a pocket or carry it multiple places, where else do you wear/carry it?

E-mail me your response here.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!

Moving again - to San Diego!

2006-12-22T23:12:00.000-08:00

Even though I just got moved down to San Francisco, I got a job offer in San Diego that I couldn't refuse. It was great meeting some of the fascinating folks in San Fran and I will be coming back up for business fairly regularly. If you live in San Diego and want to meet up, or know of any good HCI groups down there, please send me a note. Hello Sunshine!

Social Responsibility and Theoretical Choice - Part 3

2006-12-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

The Effect of Choosing Design Theories

The lesson to be learned from the Luddites is not that technology creation or adoption should be stopped, but that its influence on the surrounding society should be evaluated and managed in a humane fashion. The English workers needed a structure in place to defend their right to reasonable work for reasonable pay and manage retraining should it be needed. Unions have developed in many countries to support worker rights in this manner. Unions ensure that employers treat workers fairly and that exploitation is kept to reasonable levels, unlike what had happened in the English textiles trade.

Scandinavia is one such region which has a long tradition of participatory democracy which encouraged the development of strong trade unions. It is in this environment that participatory design (PD) arose. Consequently it has a heavy emphasis on defending worker rights, democratising design and aligning itself with the goals of unions. One of the difficulties with unions is that workers do not necessarily have an interest in allowing the introduction of more efficient technologies which require them to change job roles (e.g. the shearing frame in England). Thus, in a union-dominated environment, businesses may not reach potential efficiency levels. As a consequence of this, markets are not allowed to expand, companies may not be globally competitive, and workers continue to do mundane work which could be automated. Thus traditional PD explicitly embraces an ideological intent to give workers the power to direct and maintain technology development, potentially at the cost of holding back society from further growth and potential. Some forms of PD attempt to address this by including multiple types of stakeholders and seek compromise solutions (Floyd et al., 1989). However, how this should occur is still a matter of debate within the PD community.

There are many technologies which we now accept as commonplace, which automated jobs previously held by humans. Hughes et. al. go so far as to say that “much of the motivation for IT is to reorganise work and, as part of this, often seek to displace labour.” (Hughes, J. et al., 1994, p. 431) Examples of past automation projects include: traffic signals, ATMs, vending machines, automobile welding robots, washers and dryers, library and grocery self-checkout machines, telephone switchboards, clothing manufacture and countless other machines. Despite this trend towards increasing and successful automation, some PD researchers are intentionally avoiding automation possibilities, and instead focusing on augmentation of human workers (Messeter, Brandt, Halse, & Johansson, 2004, p. 28; Nilsson, Sokoler, Binder, & Wetcke, 2000). It should be noted that automation does not work in all situations. Notable examples include the London Underground control room (Heath, C. & Luff, 1992) and determining when to have a mobile phone ring (Brown & Randell, 2004). As these examples illustrate, some activities which humans currently do well are simply too complex to be automated using current technology. Augmentation is probably a better approach in these situations, for the time being. However, it should be remembered that automation projects such as autonomous aircraft and land vehicles were recently considered prohibitively complex, and are now a reality. It is probable that having these automated devices makes our lives easier, safer and more efficient. However, if a development process had been used which gave the power to create these new technologies to the workers who previously filled these roles - would the technologies have been created? Would an English textile worker ever have helped to create the predecessors of modern automated sewing machines and robots now seen in textile factories?

PD is not the only design theory which has social agenda. Action research is primarily a cyclical process of planning, doing, observation and reflection, but it often carries a component of social emancipation where members of affected communities research and solve their own problems with assistance from other researchers. This process often seeks to improve the position and quality of life of people in these communities. However, it also carries an implicit cultural bias. In the case of the Luddites, differing goals for the future of textiles would have been held by international businessmen, the government, factory owners and workers. A development process for textile machinery necessarily would have carried with it some of the political goals of those using it.

Research methods are often designed with a particular ideological intent, which then changes as new applications are found for the methods. For example ethnography was originally designed purely to document naturally occurring behaviour over long periods of time, in reasonably stable settings. It is now being used to inform design, and in some cases to watch highly mobile users over much shorter periods of time (see Section 3.5). For design, comprehensive documentation of cultures is less important than targeted understanding of specific relevant issues. This change in application has correspondingly changed the social impact of ethnography. Before it provided descriptions of different cultures to help remote audiences reflect on their own behaviour and understand others. Now, as Hughes et. al. mention, it helps to more effectively introduce new technologies into these cultures and reorganise their daily lives (Hughes, J. et al., 1994). To summarise: research methods carry ideological intent with them, this can change as methods are used in new situations, and most design methods (explicitly or implicitly) seek to introduce change. This is as true in the age of the Luddites as it is today.

Next Post: Social Implications of Technology Use on Backpacker Culture

Social Responsibility and Theoretical Choice - Part 2

2006-12-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

Technology and Those That Control Its Use

In present day situations it is often difficult to easily understand complex social issues. Additionally, we often do not get to see the results of social processes which can take a century to unfold and for the results to become apparent. Thus it is perhaps useful to look at well known past examples of the introduction and development of new technologies into real communities. One such well known example was the Luddite rebellion in England in the early 19th century. An analysis of this period of history demonstrates how technologies were created, and why their introduction was received so negatively. It also provides insight into how modern-day development processes with social intent might actually be received in a similar situation.

Frank Darvall wrote a book titled ‘Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England’, originally published in 1932, which forms the basis of much of the following account of the Luddites (Darvall, 1969). The Luddite rebellion occurred during the early Industrial Revolution when machinery was being introduced which changed existing work processes. Much of the English working class at this time had large families who were often living in poverty. One of the primary trades for these people was in textile production. Stockingers, croppers, hand-loom weavers, spinners, knitters and shearmen formed the primary roles within the trade. The work was hard and repetitive, and was often done for long hours in small country workshops or occasionally small factories. Professional stockingers had long constructed hosiery using a technology called a ‘stocking frame’, which was a partially mechanised tool to perform knitting. Ironically, a patent for the invention of the stocking frame in the 16th century had been repeatedly turned down by English rulers partially on the premise that it would harm the then-dominant hand-knitting trade; however, the frames eventually saw widespread usage. The frames were owned by the workers themselves; otherwise they were rented from the factory owner, which reduced the workers’ pay. A number of factors including poor agricultural harvests, fluctuating overseas trade (due to war and legislation), and employers increasing frame rental rates, made for hard times for the workers. Additionally, employers were abusing established traditions by training too many apprentices at once, and inferior ‘cut-up’ products were being produced which eroded customer trust. Moreover, there was a high rate of inflation, and some employers paid in-kind; this meant that workers could only buy products at extravagant prices from a company store. Attempts had been made for many years by the local population to seek a legal solution to the problem, but all of these efforts to seek government assistance had failed. All of this added up to workers who were unable to feed their families, unable to get work or welfare, and who saw no signs of the situation getting better. It was in this climate of poverty, desperation and exploitation that new technologies were introduced.

Some factory owners were looking for ways to compete more effectively in a poor market by producing cheaper or more numerous products. Newer automated technologies such as steam-looms, gig-mills, dressing machines and shearing frames theoretically had the potential to reduce the number of workers that were needed. In practice, some of these technologies such as steam looms did not actually replace workers because the new technologies enabled more production while using the same number of workers (Darvall, 1969, p.57). Similarly, gig mills and shearing frames still required workers, but the work transitioned to a partially automated activity which Darvall indicates was “easier, quicker, and less painful than the hand operation.” (Darvall, 1969, p.61) However, much of the working class were unemployed and desperate, and they already had a long history of disagreements with factory owners over high frame rental rates, in-kind payment, and the other abuses mentioned above. The direct visual threat of new machinery was more tangible than the remote and complex causes such as trade embargoes with the USA, the Napoleonic wars, changes in markets, inflation, and a labour surplus. Darvall indicates that it was a “…natural delusion on the part of the distressed weavers to think that their recent sufferings were due to this new method of production.” (Darvall, 1969, p.58) However, adding technologies which further increased profits for owners was not a politically popular move, particularly at a time when workers’ quality of life was threatened and unemployment was high.

From 1811 to 1817 a group which came to be known as ‘Luddites’ (after an early leader Ned Ludd), began attacking factories and machinery in a number of counties across England. The attacks had some localised coordination and were distributed deliberate responses to individual situations in different counties. In many cases it was the older frames which were destroyed, and sometimes a different kind of wide-frame associated with manufacturer of inferior quality products. In other districts the newer shearing-frames and other automated tools were targeted. In many cases it was hosiers and factory owners who had simply been exploiting workers who were targeted, instead of those using newer technologies. There was also a series of food riots around the same time which were related to the larger issues of inflation, lack of welfare, lack of foreign trade, and poor crops.

The English government reacted strongly to the attacks. Over the course of three years it brought in several thousand British soldiers, hired spies, imposed curfews and imprisoned Luddites. The Luddite violence did eventually encourage factory owners to make concessions which helped improve relations, and the workers began to create a union to protect and regulate the profession. However, the government continued to do little to force improvements in the industry or relieve suffering amongst the population. The use of force by the government did stop property damage by the Luddites, but did nothing to solve the underlying social plight.

Contrary to modern popular perception Luddites were not anti-technology. Many of them had been happily using the frame system (as opposed to doing it entirely by hand) for a long time, and various improvements to frame technologies had been supported by workers. Frame technology helped them work faster and still produce quality clothes. It was the introduction of another new technology which could potentially displace workers, without retraining programs or welfare in place beforehand, which understandably produced a problem. It was also the timing of the introduction which was an issue. Workers could not understand “the value of new machinery economizing labour at a time when goods were a glut upon the market and when there was, in any case, a surplus of labour available.” (Darvall, 1969, p.62) Some of these workers may have simply wanted to maintain existing work roles and job security, but in a time of decreasing agricultural work, decreasing land availability, changing economic climates and changing technologies, this was unlikely to be realistic.

What the Luddites did not understand (which is reasonable given the immediacy of their plight) was that markets are not static. The introduction of more efficient technologies results in an increase in the number of products produced, which means the demand of a larger market can be met. This in turn can produce more employment maintaining machinery and coping with the increased demand for products, as occurred with the steam loom. It is also often the jobs which are most dangerous, repetitive and mundane which are automated, which potentially leaves more humane and interesting work to humans. However, this process of worker retraining, unemployment and development of industries is rarely easy. As the Luddites demonstrate, without due attention from management and government it has the potential of creating inhumane and stressful situations for workers.

Next Post: The Effect of Choosing Design Theories

Moving to San Francisco

2006-11-26T17:20:00.000-08:00

Now that the PhD is in the final printing stages, I am finally making the move to San Francisco / Silicon Valley. I will be moved down by Dec. 11th 2006.

I am currently looking for employment in the Bay Area. My research and previous work experience relate to ubiquitous computing, mobile CSCW product design, usability and ethnography. I am ideally looking for a senior design role, preferably with some research involved. I also have sufficient experience to lead design projects, and advise on development processes and product strategy in this area.

If you live around SF/SV and work in the industry I'd like to meet you. Do you know of any reasonable size startups/companies looking for a motivated designer who likes pushing the boundaries of current interface design concepts? Please contact me if you know someone who I should get in touch with.

Also, I am now a member of BayCHI and I may be giving a talk at the next Mobile BOF group.

Time article on the effects of technology

2006-11-22T00:10:00.000-08:00

Stepping outside the thesis excerpt series for a moment:

Time magazine posted a very cool article (pdf) by Evan Eisenberg and David Plunkert called Original Patents. It's a satirical look at what effects our toys actually have on the world through a visual medium.

Social Responsibility and Theoretical Choice - Part 1

2006-11-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

Now that my thesis has been examined and accepted, I am going to begin posting excerpts that I think will be of interest to mobile designers and the broader HCI community. After it has been formally published I will post the entire thesis PDF, but as it is rather lengthy, I believe the smaller portions here should be easier to read.

This excerpt is the first of a six part series which addresses how design methods and theory affect the types of technologies we create and the social impact of those technologies. Are we ensuring a more humane world by using certain methods or frameworks? What can we learn from the historical examples of technology development? How can we determine if our new creations will make the world better or worse?

Excerpt from:
Axup, J. (2006, Forthcoming). Methods of Understanding and Designing For Mobile Communities. Thesis, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

It is not always clear to practitioners what the theoretical aims and resulting consequences of the methods they use are. Some methods are structured not only to produce useful results, but also to advance a social agenda or produce certain kinds of technologies. The remainder of this section explores the influence that technology has on human behaviour and the influence that designers and users have on technology. Several possibilities are presented which could help developers produce more humane technologies which likewise advance humanityÂs potential.

Choosing Design Theory With Social Intent

All methods have a theoretical bias. Ethnomethodology leans towards accounts of socially constructed behaviour from the perspective of those that live it. Ethnography similarly advocates observations of natural behaviour. Participatory design has trade union and democratic leanings. Action research sometimes aims for social emancipation. Traditional software engineering can be reductionist and seeks organised structure and logical workflows. Cultural probes aim to be playful and provoke participants to reconsider their lives. Each of these theories or methods influences the participants who take part in the research, and ultimately the type of designs and ideas that result from using them. When we choose methods we necessarily promote certain social values and design processes.

Choosing a method is often a practical issue concerning what will get results or which methods are familiar and comfortable to use. However this means that we may be supporting certain design ideologies and social outcomes of our work without realising it. So what are the implications of our design choices? What is the societal goal behind the design? Recently Google and other major US technology companies were publicly admonished for their social policies in foreign markets. Wired reported that US representative Tom Lantos said "Your abhorrent actions in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night." and went on to discuss the need for social responsibility in the tech industry . So it seems that governments are interested in the social implications of technology use, and that perhaps designers should increasingly do so as well.

Next post: Technology and Those That Control Its Use

UMPC vision video

2006-11-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

The UMPC site has an interesting little future scenario video about how UMPCs might be used. The vision seems fairly keyboard dominant which is interesting for a device that boasts handwriting recognition potential. The size has also come down to a more reasonable A5 size that would be a good compromise for reasonable web browsing but not be unwieldy.

Writing While Walking

2006-11-01T21:44:00.000-08:00

While doing some of my doctoral research I found it difficult to walk (or run) around after people and take notes, or keep eye contact with them at the same time. Also, I discovered how slow writing with a pen actually is when you have a complex observation or thought. Thus, it occurred to me to use a wearable computer, which would enable touch typing. However, head-mounted displays and twiddlers each have their issues, so I thought about a solution using more conventional hardware and a wireless connection.

At the time I was playing with an older bluetooth enabled PDA and a FrogPad one-handed keyboard. However the bluetooth drivers didn't work and I had trouble mounting the PDA to my arm. And that's where the experiment ended. However, now that I've submitted the thesis I have more time to play with it - and I think I have a working solution now. The following sections show a system which enables mobile data logging for field work, which is particularly suitable for situations with mobile participants.

Here is the "covert" operating mode. The right sleeve doesn't have to be rolled up like I have it in the photo. The band can fit over a sleeve.

Here's the equipment being used for data entry. A frogpad bluetooth keyboard is attached to a pocket on the hip. The I-mate K-JAM PDA is attached via a makeshift armband on the left arm.

Here's how you could touch-type, walk, and quickly review your writing while walking (use your imagination for the walking part).

Here's a closeup of the equipment.

Typing on the FrogPad. It is a chord keyboard. I haven't learned to touch-type on it yet, but theoretically you can get around 40wpm on it. This placement and angle isn't ideal, but isn't too bad either.

Here's the wearer's view of what is being typed.

The screen can be easily turned back into the body for privacy. The PDA and keyboard are paired wirelessly (don't try this with an older PDA). It's not necessary to view what you're typing most of the time. This is only to check for misspellings, etc. It's currently using a standard installation of pocket MS Word and a screen rotation utility. There's no reason you couldn't use pocket Excel and set up macros to automatically time-stamp every entry you put into a cell - perfect for data logging.

The armband is a piece of stretchy foam/fabric commonly found in sports/health stores pre-packaged as an arm or muscle brace. I got this used, but you can buy them for 10-$20. Sometimes they already have velcro bits you can remove and reapply as needed with a seam ripper and sewing kit.

Here's my makeshift addition of metal clips to the back of the keyboard with velcro strips.

It seems to work reasonably well and is removable. I might just glue them to the back eventually. It's possible to clip to a pocket (if the pocket is at the right angle) or to a combination of belt and pocket.

I've used some pretty heavy-duty contact cement to fasten some velcro directly onto the battery compartment of the PDA. However the battery compartment only has a flimsy plastic catch on the inside, so I may look into other options eventually. Having velcro on the PDA itself allows for repositioning of the angle of the screen on the arm.

So that's it. A wearable typing system using standard technology. A head-mounted display could also work, however, it's difficult to avoid attracting attention while taking notes anyhow. As most wearable users can tell you, they attract A LOT of attention. This can change observed behavior drastically and distract the observer. This system does look a little geeky, but most other people around will probably figure out what it is rapidly and they won't think they're under video surveillance.

If you try something like this yourself please post comments about it. Thanks!

Related papers:
Lumsden, J. and Gammell, A., Mobile Note Taking: Investigating the Efficacy of Mobile Text Entry, 6th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, September 13-16, 2004 (2004) p. 156-167.