2009 Höök, K. (2009) Affective Loop Experiences: Designing for Interactional Embodiment Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B December 12, 2009 364:3585-3595;
Abstract: Involving our corporeal bodies in interaction can create strong affective experiences. Systems that both can be influenced by and influence users corporeally exhibit a use quality we name an affective loop experience. In an affective loop experience, (i) emotions are seen as processes, constructed in the interaction, starting from everyday bodily, cognitive or social experiences; (ii) the system responds in ways that pull the user into the interaction, touching upon end users' physical experiences; and (iii) throughout the interaction the user is an active, meaning-making individual choosing how to express themselves—the interpretation responsibility does not lie with the system. We have built several systems that attempt to create affective loop experiences with more or less successful results. For example, eMoto lets users send text messages between mobile phones, but in addition to text, the messages also have colourful and animated shapes in the background chosen through emotion-gestures with a sensor-enabled stylus pen. Affective Diary is a digital diary with which users can scribble their notes, but it also allows for bodily memorabilia to be recorded from body sensors mapping to users' movement and arousal and placed along a timeline. Users can see patterns in their bodily reactions and relate them to various events going on in their lives. The experiences of building and deploying these systems gave us insights into design requirements for addressing affective loop experiences, such as how to design for turn-taking between user and system, how to create for ‘open’ surfaces in the design that can carry users' own meaning-making processes, how to combine modalities to create for a ‘unity’ of expression, and the importance of mirroring user experience in familiar ways that touch upon their everyday social and corporeal experiences. But a more important lesson gained from deploying the systems is how emotion processes are co-constructed and experienced inseparable from all other aspects of everyday life. Emotion processes are part of our social ways of being in the world; they dye our dreams, hopes and bodily experiences of the world. If we aim to design for affective interaction experiences, we need to place them into this larger picture.
Kocher, M., Denward, M. and Waern, A. (2009) Sanningen om Marika – The Interplay of Reality and Fiction In eds. Sorg, J. and Venu, J.S. Erzählformen im Computerspiel. Zur Medienmorphologie digitaler Spiele, Transcript. Bielefeld, April 2009
Abstract: One of the most exciting developments in the field of new technologies, games and other media are crossmedia productions. New forms of interaction between the ludic and the narrative are being established, displayed via different platforms such as mobile phones, television shows, online games, websites, chats, blogs and forums, as well as physical locations. Sanningen om Marika (The Truth About Marika), a Swedish crossmedia production, employed those platforms to create a fictional universe with strong references to the real. As it turned out during the play course, the distinction between fiction and reality couldn't always and easily be made by the participatory community, since the blurring of the boundaries was one of the major design strategies of the production companies. Calling Sanningen om Marika (SOM) a participation drama, the producers clearly had the intent to actively engage the participants in the storyline, and to encourage them to imagine and immerse into the fiction as if it was reality rather than just engage in a game. This article will explore the strategies of the blurring of the boundaries between reality and fiction as it occurred in SOM and explain how the different platforms were contributing to its ambiguity.
Jonsson, M., Tholander, J., Fernaeus., Y. (2009) Setting the Stage. Setting the stage – Embodied and spatial dimensions in emerging programming practices Interacting with Computers Volume 21, Issues 1-2, January 2009, Pages 117-124
Abstract: NA
Jacobsson, M. (2009) Play, Belief and Stories about Robots: A Case Study of a Pleo Blogging Community In Proceedings of RO-MAN 2009, IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, Toyama International Conference Center, Japan
Abstract: We present an analysis based on user-provided content collected from online blogs and forums about the robotic artifact Pleo. Our primary goal is to explore stories about how human-robot interaction would manifest themselves in actual real-world contexts. To be able to assess these types of communicative media we are using a method based on virtual ethnography that specifically addresses underlying issues in how the data is produced and should be interpreted. Results indicate that generally people are staging, performing and have a playful approach to the interaction. This is further emphasized by the way people communicate their stories through the blogging practice. Finally we argue that these resources are indeed essential for understanding and designing long-term human-robot relationships.
Isbister, K., and Höök, K. (2009) On Being Supple: In Search of Rigor without Rigidity in Meeting New Design and Evaluation Challenges for HCI Practitioners Proceeding of the twenty-seventh annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 2233-2242, ACM Press, Boston, USA, 2009
Abstract: In this paper, we argue that HCI practitioners are facing new challenges in design and evaluation that can benefit from the establishment of commonly valued use qualities, with associated strategies for producing and rigorously evaluating work. We present a particular use quality 'suppleness' as an example. We describe ways that use qualities can help shape design and evaluation process, and propose tactics for the CHI community to use to encourage the evolution of bodies of knowledge around use qualities.
Höök, K. (2009) Mobile Life – innovation in the wild 12th IFIP TC 13 International Conference (Gross, T, Gulliksen, J., Kotzé, P, Oestreicher, L., Palanque, P., Prates, R. O., Winckler, M. (eds.)) IFIP TC 13, Uppsala, Sweden Volym: Part I Sidor: 1-3, Springer-Verlag
Abstract: After a decade of work in our research labs on mobile and ubiquitous technology, often formed by the early visions of ubiquitous computing, with the urge to move interaction from the desktop out into the wild, these technologies have now moved out into the world – into the wild. We are in the middle of a second IT-revolution, caused by the spread of mobile and ubiquitous services, in combination with a broad consumer-oriented market pull. The first IT-revolution, the introduction and deployment of Internet and the World Wide Web during the 1990’s, had a major impact on all parts of our society. As mobile, ubiquitous technology now becomes wide-spread, the design and evaluation of mobile services – i.e. information technology that can be accessed and used in virtually any setting – represents an important business arena for the IT- and telecom industry. Together we have to look for a sustainable web of work, leisure and ubiquitous technology we can call the mobile life. But what impact does this have on HCI research? In particular, what is our role in innovating new services, new technologies, new interaction models and new ways of living with this technology? Obviously, new methods for design and evaluation of interfaces are needed, especially when those interfaces are not always clearly ‘interfaces’ anymore, but blend in with various new materials in our environments or even worn on our bodies. Usage situations are shifting, unstable, mobile settings – interaction in the wild. There is a need for design methods that help structure a multitude of different sources of inspiration and fieldwork, and synthesize it into concrete requirements and service or technology concepts. In our work we have used a variety of such methods, such as ethnography as a basis for design, Laban-notation to analyse body behaviours, novel forms of quick sketching of mobile service interaction, cultural probes to understand emotional processes in people’s everyday lives, bodystorming for situating ideas in the real world, and the experience clip method for user self-evaluation to evaluate mobile services in their realistic setting. We have also developed our own methods, such as e.g. user-driven innovation - studying extreme or specialised user groups and then innovating services for other user groups based on those experiences But we also see trends that will turn these ways of approaching innovation upside down. Producers and consumers blend together in what we name Mobile 2.0-services, creating content dependent on the mobile setting. Sketching in hardware and software combinations becomes accessible not only to technology experts, but to all. How can HCI-practice change to make the ‘digital materials’ accessible to all rather than supporting only HCI-experts to develop innovative design? As pointed out in the vision “Being Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the year 2020”, HCI needs to orient towards the values shaped by the interaction between technology and people in our everyday lives. As digital, interactive technology enters every aspect of our lives we must do justice to the full complexity of actual human lived experience, where people actively and individually construct meaningful experiences around technology. We might even have to take responsibility for how society is shaped by this second digital revolution - making values such as privacy, autonomy or trust, but also living a good, rich life, explicitly part of our design processes and study methods, creating for a sustainable, human-friendly society. In the Mobile Life centre, we work around a vision of a ludic society where work mixes with leisure, private with public – a society where enjoyment, experience and play are adopted into all aspects of life. It becomes important to recognise that private and leisure life should not have to be as polished and efficient as your work performance when practices and technology travel between these spheres of our life. In my talk, I will discuss the implications for academic research in HCI as well as how this fosters a novel work practice in industry. The ICT and telecom industry will be less focused on identifying needs and more focused on values, in particular, ludic aspects of life.
Ahmet, Z (2009) Colors, Faces and Illustrations: New concepts for tools for reporting emotion and activity in a pervasive game Bachelor thesis. Informatics, Linköping University
Abstract: Players of video games often find themselves at a set location, in a room or a game hall, playing alone, with family or friends, even both, or maybe with strangers over the Internet. The game becomes intense when the player reaches a crucial moment or event. Such moments might be when the player has reached a new level, received a new piece of equipment, found the last hidden key or is about to kill the last “boss” in the game to win a war. The emotional state of the player changes as the game proceeds, where excitement can be closely followed by frustration or surprise. Studying players of such games has become easier when new technology give us the opportunity to study them closely. By the use of biosensors, cameras and close observations, observers can collect a rich amount of quantitative and qualitative data. But the complexity increases when the players are players of a pervasive game. Pervasive games are games that expand socially, spatially and temporally. They are lived experiences, where players might experience the more (or less) intense moments in the game when they e.g. find themselves in a dark alley chasing a fictional character in the streets of Sheffield (UK), on a bike recording memories and thoughts in a “hidden” location outside central London (UK) or running around downtown, trying to map places of interference on the Internet in Düsseldorf (Germany). The players are more or less on the loose, which minimizes the chances to carry out close observations. In this thesis I will report on a design project focusing on finding new concepts in capturing different aspects of the game experiences. By focusing on game play experience, I have chosen to go beyond the traditional usability evaluation methods used in present CHI practice and focus on representations for different aspects of the game experience. I will describe the design rationale and process in choosing concepts as well as presenting the resulting design proposals for two hand-held tools for self-reporting. The designs for the tools will be based on findings from a conducted user study, where representations for game play experiences will be tested by potential users. At the end of this thesis I will discuss the results from my design process as well as lessons learnt from the project.
Belloni, N. Holmquist, L.E. and Tholander J. (2009) See You on the Subway: Exploring Mobile Social Software Work in progress at CHI 2009, April 4-9, Boston, USA
Abstract: This project explores the social possibilities of mobile technology in transitional spaces such as public transport. Based on a cultural probes study of Stockholm subway commuters, we designed a location-based friend finder that displays only people in the same train as the user. We aim at reaching a critical mass of users and therefore decided to make the system compatible with as many phones as possible, thus it was designed as a simple web application. An initial informal study pointed out consequences of certain design decisions on the user experience and highlighted social tensions created by presence awareness.
Brunnberg, L., Gustavsson, A. and Juhlin, O. (2009) Games for passengers - Accounting for Motion in location based applications Forthcoming in Proceedings of International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (ICFDG), April 26-30 on Disney Wonder Cruiseship, Florida, pp 26-33
Abstract: Passengers pay attention to the landscape as they move through the environment. We suggest a new type of applications, which adds to that experience. It consider their motion and velocity, which make the time available for interaction with individual geographical objects very limited, at the same time as they cannot control it. Applications, in this case a game, could utilize audio and gesture interfaces, as well as digital maps to provide for experiences that are sequentially mapped onto the landscape. An initial user feed back trial made visible interactional and experiential challenges in passengering.
Bäckström, A. and Danell, E. (2009) Authoring tools for interactive narratives - an interface design of a script editor for the pervasive game Backseat Playground Master thesis. Computing Science. Umeå University
Abstract: The frontiers of gaming is constantly moved forward and the pervasive game Backseat Playground, developed at Interactive Institute is no exception. The game experience is created while driving along the road, the story adapts to the outside environment and according to the player’s interactions with the game world. To create such an adaptive game world requires a great amount of story content, and to make this process manageable a tool was requested by the developer team at Interactive Institute. The main challenge of designing such a tool is to visualize and structure the special information needed in this kind of game. This thesis investigates the scope of the game Backseat Playground and establishes the requirements for a possible editor. The thesis also dives into two theoretical parts with close connections to this field: Interactive narratives and content creation for prevasive game environments. The creation process of this prototype has involved tasks such as interviews and script creation to schetches and flow charts and the result is, besides an extentensive pre-study also a semi-functional prototype for demonstrational purposes implemented in Flash CS3, actionscript 3.0. This report describes the complete workflow and the final result of this thesis.
Denward, M. and Waern, A. (2009) On the Edge of Reality: Reality Fiction in Sanningen om Marika In Proceedings of DIGRA conference, September, Brunel University, United Kingdom.
Abstract: The Alternate Reality Game genre inspires a mode of play in which the participants choose to act as if the game world was real. Jane McGonigal has argued that one of the most attractive features of an ARG is the ‘Pinnochio’ effect: at the same time that the players deeply long to believe in them, it is in reality impossible to believe in them for real. In this article, we study “Sanningen om Marika”, a game production where fact and fiction was blurred in a way that made some participants believe that the production was reality rather than fiction, whereas other participants found the production deeply engaging. We discuss the different participant interpretations of the production and how it affected the players´ mode of engagement. We also outline some of the design choices that caused the effect.
Engström A., Brunnberg L., Juhlin, O. (2009) Tiny Broadcast Systems ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Emerging Technologies Yokohama 17-19th December
Abstract: NA
Fernaeus, Y. (2009) Human Action and Experience As Basis for the Design and Study of Robotic Artefacts RO-MAN 2009: 18th IEEE International Symposim on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 27 Sept - 2 Oct 2009, Toyama, Japan
Abstract: This paper aims to illustrate how robotic artefacts and applications may be described from a perspective of human action and experience. This is done by presenting an interaction model based on four ways that interactive artefacts may work as resources for human action. In contrast to data-centric models, this model includes socially and contextually oriented actions performed around the artefact, as well as actions related to the computational system running on the machine. A goal with the framework is to provide a concrete reference for designers, focusing on the experiential dimensions of the products that they develop.
Fernaeus, Y. and Jacobsson, M. (2009) Comics, robots, fashion and programming: outlining the concept of actDresses Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI'09), 16-18 Feb 2009, Cambridge, UK.
Abstract: This paper concerns the design of physical languages for controlling and programming robotic consumer products. For this purpose we explore basic theories of semiotics represented in the two separate fields of comics and fashion, and how these could be used as resources in the development of new physical languages. Based on these theories, the design concept of actDresses is defined, and supplemented by three example scenarios of how the concept can be used for controlling, programming, and predicting the behaviour of robotic systems.
Fernaeus, Y., Jacobsson, M., Ljungblad, S., and Holmquist, L. E. (2009) Are we living in a robot cargo cult? Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE international Conference on Human Robot interaction, HRI '09, 2009, March 09 - 13 La Jolla, California, USA, 279-280
Abstract: We use the Cargo Cult metaphor to discuss visions, methods and communication of robot research. Essentially cargo cult involves performing of imitative rituals that are conducted without understanding the underlying cause of a phenomenon. We discuss how this is an ongoing challenge within the field of HRI, and what researchers could do to avoid contributing to a robotic cargo cult.
Höök, K. (2009) Knowing, Communicating and Experiencing through Body and Emotion IEEE Transactions on Learning technologies, 4(1), 248—259
Abstract: With new technologies such as body sensors, tangible interaction, haptics, interactive cloth, or small computing devices such as mobiles, we can move interaction from the desktop out into the world and onto our bodies. Likewise, with the boom of computer games, domestic digital technology use, and social communication tools, we have to consider designing for non-instrumental goals, beyond task completion. This has been picked up by human-computer interaction researchers in the so-called third wave of HCI. We suggest that learning technologies could use some of the results from the third wave of HCI, placing body and emotion more centrally into the communication and construction of knowledge. Designing for bodily interaction, emotional communication or aesthetics is not trivial. In design work, a designer can only set the stage for certain experience to happen, but in the end, it is the user who co-constructs the experience with or through the interaction. Based on our experiences of designing for bodily and emotional communication, we will posit three postulates that might be helpful in designing for involving interaction: leaving dasiasurfacespsila open for users to appropriate, building for users to recognise themselves socially, emotional or bodily through the interface, and avoiding reductionism.
Håkansson, M. (2009) On the move - sharing music, inspiration and fun To be published in Vodafone receiver magazine, #22 Seizing the moment issue, May 2009
Abstract: NA
Kosmack Vaara, E., Höök, K., and Tholander, J. (2009) Mirroring bodily experiences over time Work in progress at CHI 2009. Boston, USA
Abstract: The Affective Health system is a mobile lifestyle application that aims to empower people to reflect on their lives and lifestyles. The system logs a mixture of biosensor-data and other contextually oriented data and transforms these to a colorful, animated expression on their mobiles. It is intended to create a mirror and thereby empower users to see activity patterns and relate these to their experiences of stress. People’s different cultural backgrounds and their different physiological and psychological composition give them different perceptions and associations of time. We explore the time dimension of our system through working through a set of different designs that organize events as time going linearly forward, in a circular movement or relating to geographical places. Here we discuss the process of designing a mobile interface for presenting temporal data in a way that allows multiple and subjective interpretation.
Laaksolahti, J., Isbister, K, and Höök, K. (2009) Using the Sensual Evaluation Instrument Journal of Digital Creativity Volume 20, Issue 3 September 2009 , pages 165 – 175
Abstract: In our research we made use of an instrument previously developed to facilitate nonverbal self-report of emotion, which consists of eight sculpted objects. We describe the use of this instrument in the assessment of three interactive storytelling experiences in a small user study and draw some conclusions about the instrument's effectiveness in supporting design.
Larshammar, M. (2009) Mobile usage at the community site Playahead Ms. Sc. thesis, Computer and System Sciences Dept., Stockholm University
Abstract: Communities have always excited in human life and people have always met to discuss subjects that are important and interesting to us. For a long time communities were bound to the limitation of time and space, but with highly developed mobile phones and networks, people are these days able to “meet” anytime, anywhere at mobile communities. This study has examined the mobile usage at the community site Playahead. The study had an inductive approach primarily based on analysing quantitative data from usage logs, but also included a survey. The purpose of the study was to look at the mobile usage of different social functions at Playahead and see if the usage differed between different user groups, e.g. between male and females and different age segments. It was also of interest to see how the activity differed between weekdays and weekends. Our main findings was that women tend to use the communicative functions chat and write guestbook more than men and that women also login more to Playahead. Men, on the other hand, are sending more mail than women and are looking at profiles more. The age distribution looked similar for most of the functions with an age peak at 14, 15 and 16. Comparing weekends and weekdays showed us that the usage followed a similar pattern for the different methods. At weekdays the usage started earlier in the mornings and ended earlier in the evenings. At weekends the activity started later in the mornings and continued later on throughout the nights.
Cramer, H., Helena Mentis, Ylva Fernaeus (2009) Serious work on playful experiences: a preliminary set of challenges Position paper at the ‘Fun, seriously?’ workshop at CSCW 2010, Savannah, GA, USA
Abstract: NA
Ahmet, Z (2009) Faces and Illustrations: New concepts for tools for reporting emotion and activity in a pervasive game Bachelor thesis. Informatics, Linköping University
Abstract: NA
Waern, A., Ahmet, Z. and Sundström, D. (2009) An In-Game Reporting Tool for Pervasive Games In proceedings of ACM Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE) 2009, November, Athens, Greece
Abstract: NA
Ziegler, Elisa (2009) Real-time markerless tracking of objects on mobile devices B.Sc. Thesis, University of Koblenz
Abstract: Additionally, mobile devices include several hardware features nowadays, like GPS positioning, motion-sensing accelerometers and compasses. Applications for mobile devices can determine the position of the mobile device, its orientation and its inclination, although not very accurately. Thus, it is possible to use mobile devices for augmented reality applications. These applications rely in almost every case on the position and orientation of the device and/or the tracking of markers, which have been placed in the real world. However, adding to the inaccurate positioning, there is another issue which current applications cannot solve yet: The augmentation lags behind, whenever the user moves the device with natural speed. If the applications use marker or markerless tracking, a correct detection is only possible if the markers or objects in the real world are captured at least almost completely on the screen. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the possibilities of displaying larger-than-screen objects on mobile devices with real-time markerless tracking. Different approaches to markerless object and symbol identification will be investigated regarding their portability to mobile devices with sufficient performance. Depending on how promising the investigated methods are one or several will be implemented for further research. By combining and enhancing the methods, a markerless tracking technique for mobile devices will be developed. The primary concerns will be the performance of this technique and the visualisation of larger-than-screen objects while the user moves around them.
Weymann, C. (2009) Development of an Affective User Interface for Mobile Phones Diploma Thesis at University of Koblenz-Landay, Germany
Abstract: As part of the Affective Health project this thesis describes some of the challenges of developing a UI that does not use standard UI components and uses its own visual language. It focuses on the implementation of graphics and interaction. I present OpenGL ES as sufficient tool for this task and used the touch screen for interaction. The choice of these techniques is explained and problems arising when using them are described.
Wetzel, R., Waern A. Jonsson, S., Lindt, I., Ljungstrand, P. and Åkesson, K-P. (2009) Boxed Pervasive Games: An Experience with User-Created Pervasive Games International Conference on Pervasive Computing Pervasive '09
Abstract: Pervasive games are rapidly maturing - from early research experiments with locative games we now start to see a range of commercial projects using locative and pervasive technology to create technology-supported pervasive games. In this paper we report on our experiences in transferring the successful involvement of players in computer games to ‘modding’ for pervasive games. We present the design process, the enabling tools and two sample games provided in boxes to end users. Finally we discuss how our findings inform the design of ‘modding’ tools for a pervasive game community of the future.
Håkansson, M. (2009) Explicit and Implicit Interaction in Mobile Media Applications Doctoral thesis in Man-Machine Interaction, Stockholm University, Sweden
Abstract: This thesis contributes with insights into how aspects of the surrounding physical and social context can be exploited in the design of mobile media applications for playful use. In this work, context refers to aspects of the immediate surroundings – outside of the device – that can be identified and measured by sensors; for instance environmental aspects like sound, and social aspects like co-located people. Two extensive case studies explore the interplay between users, mobile media, and aspects of context in different ways, and how it can invite playful use. The first case study, Context Photography, uses sensor-based information about the immediate physical surroundings to affect images in real time in a novel digital camera application for everyday creativity. The second, Push!Music, makes it possible to share music both manually and autonomously between co-located people, based on so-called media context, for spontaneous music sharing.
The insights gained from the designs, prototypes, and user studies, point at the value of combining explicit and implicit interaction – essentially, the expected and unexpected – to open for playful use. The explicit interaction encouraged users to be active, exploratory, and creative. The implicit interaction let users embrace and exploit dynamic qualities of the surroundings, contributing to making the systems fun, exciting, magical, ‘live’, and real. This combination was facilitated through our approach to context, where sensor-based information was mostly open in use and interpretation, ambiguous, visible, and possible to override for users, and through giving the systems a degree of agency and autonomy. A key insight is that the combination of explicit and implicit interaction allowed both control and a sense of magic in the interaction with the mobile media applications, which together seems to encourage play and playfulness.
Waern A., Montola, M. and Stenros, J. (2009) The Three-Sixty Illusion: Designing For Immersion in Pervasive Games In Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Human factors in computing Systems CHI'09, Boston, Ma
Abstract: Pervasive games are staged in reality and their main attractiveness is generated by using reality as a resource in the game. Yet, most pervasive games that use mobile and location-based technology use reality only in a weak sense, as the location for a computerized game. In this article we analyze two game practices, Nordic style live action role-playing (larp) and alternate reality games (ARG), that instead use reality as their main game resource. We analyze how they go about creating a believable game world and encourage the players to actively take part in this world. We present two example games that do the same with the support of technology, effectively realizing an immersive game world through a combination of physical play and technology-supported play.
Vold, T., Marzo, R., and Waern, A. (2009) Play Style Survey In S. Dikkers, C. Steinkuhler, K. Squire, and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) Real-Time Research: An Experiment in Design. Pittsburg: ETC Press.
Abstract: Is there any coherence in how different professions place themselves as players on the Bartle’s graph of different play styles?
Sundström, P., Jaensson, T., Höök, K. and Pommeranz, A. (2009) Probing the Potential of Non-verbal Group Communication In Proceedings of Group 2009, May 10-13, Florida, USA.
Abstract: Designing for non-verbal communication using e.g. gestures and other bodily expressions is difficult. Hardware and software need to be co-designed and harmonize in order to not throw users out of their embodied experience. We aim to design for kinaesthetic expressions of emotion in communication between friends – in this case, colleagues at work. A probe was built using sensor node technology designed to let users express themselves and their emotional state to a public and shared display where the expressions together formed a collective art piece expressing the individuals but also the group as a whole. Two groups of colleagues used the probe during two weeks. It came to serve as a channel in which some conflicts and expressions of social relations were acted out which were not openly discussed in the office. It exposed different roles and balances in relationships in the group. Finally, the probe taught us the importance of balancing the design for joint group expression and individual, personal expressions. The study also allowed the participants to experience the sensor node-‘material’ – enabling a participatory design process.
Ljungblad, S. (2009) Passive Photography from a Creative Perspective In Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Human factors in computing Systems CHI'09, Boston, Ma.
Abstract: We aim to understand meaningful experiences of photography, in order reflect upon the design of future camera devices. We have conducted a study of a passive camera device called Sensecam, which previously has been investigated as a memory aid, a combination of life-logging and memory tool and as resource for digital narratives. We take a creative perspective and show that even if a camera is designed to be forgotten in use (i.e. is worn as a necklace and takes pictures automatically) it can still be part of an engaging or active photographic experience. Because Sensecam is different from film cameras, camera phones and other digital cameras, this involves a different type of photographic experience and pictures, for example when moving through different social contexts, and how the resulting pictures are valued. Our findings stem from people who used the camera for a week, and are complemented with reflections from the author who has used the camera for a month.
Ståhl, A., Höök, K., Svensson, M., Taylor, A. and Combetto, M. (2009) Experiencing the Affective Diary In Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing: Volume 13, Issue5 (2009), Page 365.
Abstract: A diary is generally considered to be a book in which one keeps a regular record of events and experiences that have some personal significance. As such, it provides a useful means to privately express inner thoughts or to reflect on daily experiences, helping in either case to put them in perspective. Taking conventional diary keeping as our starting point, we have designed and built a digital diary, named Affective Diary, with which users can scribble their notes, but that also allows for bodily memorabilia to be recorded from body sensors and mobile media to be collected from users’ mobile phones. A premise that underlies the presented work is one that views our bodily experiences as integral to how we come to interpret and thus make sense of the world. We present our investigations into this design space in three related lines of inquiry: (1) a theoretical grounding for affect and bodily experiences; (2) a user-centred design process, arriving at the Affective Diary system; and (3) an exploratory end-user study of the Affective Diary with 4 users during several weeks of use. Through these three inquiries, our overall aim has been to explore the potential of a system that interleaves the physical and cultural features of our embodied experiences and to further examine what mediaspecific qualities such a design might incorporate. Concerning the media-specific qualities, the key appears to be to find a suitable balance where a system does not dictate what should be interpreted and, at the same time, lends itself to enabling the user to participate in the interpretive act. In the exploratory end-user study users, for the most part, were able to identify with the body memorabilia and together with the mobile data, it enabled them to remember and reflect on their past. Two of our subjects went even further and found patterns in their own bodily reactions that caused them to learn something about themselves and even attempt to alter their own behaviours.
Rost, M. and Belloni, N. (2009) Experiencing Mobile 2.0 with Context-Aware Applications In MobileHCI 2009 workshop on "Context-Aware Mobile Media and Mobile Social Networks", MobileHCI 2009, 15-18 September 2009, Bonn, Germany
Abstract: In this paper, we present through the description of several applications how the Mobile 2.0 project is exploring the scope of context-aware mobile applications and their implications on a human-centered perspective.
Montola, M., Stenros, J. and Waern, A. (2009) Pervasive Games: Theory and Design Morgan Kaufmann
Abstract: Quickly emerging from the fast-paced growth of mobile communications and wireless technologies, pervasive games provide a worldwide network of potential play spaces. Now games can be designed to be played in public spaces like conferences, museums, communities, cities, buildings and other non-traditional game venues...and game designers need to understand the medium—both its challenges and its advantages. This book shows game designers how to change the face of play—who plays, when and where they play and what that play means to all involved. Montola and Stenros explore aspects of pervasive games that concern and affect game designers: what makes these games compelling, what makes them possible today, how they are made and by whom, as well as the theoretical and philosophical reasoning behind their designs.
Perry, M., Juhlin, O., Esbjörnsson, M. and Engström, A. (2009) Lean collaboration through video gestures: co-ordinating the production of live televised sport To appear in Proceedings of CHI 2009. ACM Press. CHI Honorable Mention!