The CASIDE project has made important investigations into the ways in which the physical placement and design of networked displays in semi-wild settings influences and facilitates coordination and notions of community.
The project three key research objectives and achievements under these objectives are described below.
We used ethnographic and related studies in order to understand the social nature of a number of public and semi-public spaces. Settings that were studied included: the homes of lecturing/research staff (from Lancaster and Newcastle University), a Computing department space spread over two floors in the newly constructed InfoLab21 building of Lancaster University, a residential care facility, a University climbing club and a rural village near Lancaster. A range of techniques were employed including the use of cultural probes, technology probes, focus groups and participatory design workshops.
From left to right: The residential care facility, a view along a coridoor in Infolab, the uni climbing club noticeboard.
From left to right: Discussing probe pack returns with the residents of Wray in the local pub and an actual returned probe pack.
Situated displays do not typically fit the traditional single user mouse/keyboard interaction style and our work has explored the appropriate design of appropriate interaction techniques. For example, we have disseminated (through journal publications) techniques and design guidelines for supporting local and remote mobile phone interaction in situated public display deployments and for designing awareness systems based around situated display technologies.
From left to right: A very early version of the Hermes Photo Display, a visitor to Infolab sending an image to the photo display, a local resident commenting on the Wray Photo Deploy during a field trial in the Village Hall.
A key element of our research methodology is the use of substantial deployed installations. The long term use of novel technologies, especially their collaborative and community effects, cannot be deeply understood through short-term experiments or 'toy' installations. The two major prolonged deployments carried out under CASIDE have been the Hermes II deployment in Lancaster's InfoLab21 building and the Wray Photo Display. A third deployment, involving deployments periods in the order of weeks rather than months was the Hermes@home system which revealed a number of insights into the use of messaging displays around the home and patterns of interaction that developed around these displays.
From left to right: One of the five Hermes@Home Deployments, A sample greeting
The HermesII deployment of Interactive Office Door Displays represents an internationally significant and novel ubicomp display deployment. One key innovative feature of the approach is the use of network bootable computers enabling large numbers of displays to be powered on or off using simple to use web based tools. Similarly, software version control across multiple door displays becomes trivial and highly scalable - from an administrators perspective the process being as simple to update 40 displays as it would be to update 4000. However, a number of technical and logistical issues associated with this approach meant that the deployment of the HermesII system was completed in xxx. Another novel aspect of the approach was that a middleware was developed in order to enable members of the department to develop their own door display applications by building on or modifying a range of prebuilt components (see D. Fitton PhD thesis, 2006) - this 'sandboxing' approach has enabled masters projects to utilise the Hermes deployment without risk of corrupting the system and jeopardising its day to day use.
From left to right: One of the forty deployed HermesII displays, a unit for a shared office, a display showing its owner's latest conference trip.
The Wray photo display deployment has been deployed since August 2006. This prototype display has not only been useful in assessing the use of public displays in communities, but also in learning about the community itself and its use of digital content, in this case photos, within its social activities. We have been able to observe the types of photos uploaded and their community-centric nature, the way they are categorised (significantly, members of the community can create and moderate their own photo categories), the comments people make about them, and the way people interact with each other around these photos.
From left to right: One of the historic photos submitted to the Wray Photo Display, the current deployment in the village Post Office.
In December 2005, Keith Cheverst gave invited seminars to the IDEA group at Melbourne University and to the HCI group at Brisbane University. Title: Exploring the Design and Use of Messaging and Situated Displays.
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talkto_IDEA_Dec05.pdf
In June 2005, Keith Cheverst gave an Invited Talk to Socio-Deigital Systems Group, Microsoft, Cambridge. Title: Supporting coordination and notions of community in semi-wild domains:
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talkto_SDS_June05.pdf
In November 2006, Keith Cheverst gave an invited seminar to the HCI group at Waikato University, New Zealand. Title: Experiences around the Use of Situated Digital Displays to Support Coordination and Notions of Community.
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talkto_Waikato_Nov06.pdf
In December 2006, Keith Cheverst gave an invited seminar to the IDEA group at Melbourne University. Title: Issues with the Deployment of a Photo Display in a Village Community – yes, another Technology Probe….
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talkto_IDEA_Dec06.pdf
In September 2007, Keith Cheverst gave an invited seminar to Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur. Title: CASIDE: How can we utilise situated displays to support coordination and notions of community?.
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talkto_Sunway_Sept07.pdf
In November 2007, Keith Cheverst gave an Invited Keynote at the two day International Workshop on Supporting Social Interaction with Mundane Technologies, Melbourne. Title: Social Interaction, Messaging to Place and Situated Digital Displays.
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_SimtechKeynote_Nov07.pdf
In May 2008, Keith Cheverst gave an Invited Seminar to the HCI group at University Udine, Italy. Title: Supporting Awareness through situated office door displays.
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talkto_Udine_May08.pdf
In July 2008, Keith Cheverst gave a short talk as part of the "For Billions: User-Generated Content Systems and Services for Developing Country Contexts" workshop (see: http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/forbillions/) in Capte Town, South Africa. Title: “This Might Be Stupid, But…”: Participatory Design of a Situated Digital Photo Displays for a Rural Village.
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talk_SA_July08.pdf
In November 2008, Keith Cheverst gave an Invited Seminar to the FIT group at the University of Swansea, Title: Exploring Awareness (and Community) Through Three Situated Display based Systems.
Handouts: http://www.caside.lancs.ac.uk/publications/CASIDE_talkto_FIT_Nov08.pdf
D. Fitton, Exploring The Design, Deployment and Use of Hermes: A System of Digital Interactive Office Door Displays. PhD thesis, Lancaster University, Nov. 2006.
Taylor, N. and Cheverst, K., Social Interaction around a Community Photo Display, submitted to IJHCS special issue on Collocated Social Practices Surrounding Photos.
Müller, J. K. Cheverst and A. Krüger Measuring the Audience of Digital Signage, submitted to Interacting With Computers.Müller, J. K. Cheverst, D. Fitton, N. Taylor, O. Paczkowski, and A. Krüger (2009) Experiences of supporting local and remote mobile phone interaction in situated public display deployments (2009) International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction (IJMHCI) special issue on Advances in Evaluating Mobile and Ubiquitous System (to appear).
Cheverst, K., A. Dix, C. Graham, D. Fitton and M. Rouncefield, Exploring Awareness Related Messaging through Two Situated Display based Systems, in Special Issue of Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 22, Number 1-2. pp. 173-220. June 2007.
Crabtree, A., A. French, C. Greenhalgh, S. Benford, K. Cheverst, D. Fitton, M. Rouncefield, and C. Graham. (2006) Developing Digital Records: Early Experiences of Record and Replay, in Special Issue of JCSCW (Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work) on Collaboration in e-Research, Guest Editors: Marina Jirotka, Rob Procter, Tom Rodden and Geoffrey C. Bowker. 281-319, Volume 15, Number 4, August, 2006.
Graham, C., Cheverst, K., and Rouncefield, M. (2006). Technology For The Humdrum: Trajectories, Interactional Needs and a Care Setting. Australian Journal of Information Systems (AJIS). Vol 13, No 2. pp. 89-102, 2006.
Fitton, D., K. Cheverst, C. Kray, A. Dix, M. Rouncefield and G. Saslis-Lagoudakis, Rapid Prototyping and User Centred Design of Interactive Display based Systems, in Special Issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing on Rapid Prototyping for Ubiquitous Computing, Guest editors, N. Davies, J. Landay, S. Hudson and A. Schmidt, IEEE, October-December, 2005. pp 58-66. Volume 4, Number 4.
Taylor, N., Cheverst, K., This Might Be Stupid, But…”: Participatory Design with Community Displays and Postcards, in Proc. of International Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (OzCHI’08), Cairns, Australia, December 2008.
Taylor, N., Cheverst, K., Rouncefield, M. and Izadi, S., Encouraging Community Spirit with Situated Displays, in Proc. of AISB International Symposium on Persuasive Technology, University Aberdeen, Vol. 3, pp 39-42, April 2008.
Taylor, N., Cheverst, K., Dix, A., Race, N. Fitton D., Rouncefield, M. and Graham, C. Probing Communities: Study of a Village Photo Display, in Proc. of International Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (OzCHI’07), November 2007.
Graham, C Rouncefield, M Cheverst, K., Gibbs, M. and Vetere., F. How Probes Work, in Proc. of International Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (OzCHI’07), November 2007.
Kray, C., Cheverst, K., Fitton, D., Sas, C., Patterson, J., Rouncefield, M., and Stahl, C. 2006. Sharing control of dispersed situated displays between nomadic and residential users, in Proc. of the 8th Conference on Human-Computer interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (Helsinki, Finland, September 12 - 15, 2006). MobileHCI '06, vol. 159. ACM Press, New York, NY, 61-68
Saslis-Lagoudakis, G., Cheverst, K., Dix, A., Fitton D., and Rouncefield, M. Hermes@Home: Supporting Awareness and Intimacy between Distant Family Members, in Proc. of International Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (OzCHI’06), November 2006.
Cheverst, K., Conder, C., Graham, C. and Rouncefield, M. Scarecrow Ethnography, in Proc. of the Ethnography Conference, University of Liverpool, 2006.
Cheverst, K. Dix, A. Fitton, D., Kray, C., Rouncefield, M., Sas, C., Saslis-Lagoudakis, G. and Sheridan, J. Exploring Bluetooth based Mobile Phone Interaction with the Hermes Photo Display, in Proc. of the seventh ACM International Symposium on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI ’05) 2005. Salzburg, Austria, pp. 47-54, Sept 2005.
Graham, C., Cheverst, K., Rouncefield, M., and Kray, C. 2005. Going more public: situated display design in a care setting through co-realisation. In Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Designing For User Experience (San Francisco, California, November 03 - 05, 2005). Designing For User Experiences, vol. 135. AIGA: American Institute of Graphic Arts, New York, NY, 18.
Cheverst, K., A. Dix, D. Fitton C. Graham, and M. Rouncefield, Situatedness of Awareness Information: impact on the design and usage of awareness systems, in: Awareness Systems: Advances in theory, methodology and design. Springer HCI Series – Eds: Panos Markopoulos and Boris de Ruyter, Chapter 17, Springer.
Taylor, N. and K. Cheverst (2008), Supporting Community Awareness with Public Photo Displays, in proc of Workshop on Photos and Interspaces, Lancaster, April 2008. See: http://www.mundanetechnologies.com/goings-on/workshop/lancaster/photos/
Cheverst, K., N. Taylor, M. Rouncefield, A. Galani and C. Kray (2008) The Challenge of Evaluating Situated Display based Technology Interventions Designed to Foster ‘Sense of Community’, in proc. of 2nd International Workshop on Ubiquitous Systems Evaluation (USE '08), Graeme Stevenson, Steve Neely, and Christian Kray (eds.):. Seoul, South Korea, September 21, 2008. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, ISSN 1613-0073, online CEUR-WS.org/Vol-393/. See: http://www.useworkshop.org/
Taylor, N. and K. Cheverst (2008), Supporting Community Awareness with Public Photo Displays, in proc of Workshop on Photos and Interspaces, Lancaster, April 2008. See: http://www.mundanetechnologies.com/goings-on/workshop/lancaster/photos/
Cheverst, K.,, P. Coulton, W. Bamford and N. Taylor (2008) Supporting (Mobile) User Experience at a Rural Village ‘Scarecrow Festival’: A Formative Study of a Geolocated Photo Mashup Utilising a Situated Display, in Proc. of Intl Workshop on Mobile Interaction in the Real World (MIRW), pp. 27-38, ISBN 978-3-8142-2134-2. Amsterdam, September 2008. See: http://mirw08.offis.de/
Cheverst, K., J. Schöning, A. Krueger and M. Rohs (2008) PhotoMap: Snap, Grab and Walk away with a ‘YOU ARE HERE’ Map, in Proc. of Intl Workshop on Mobile Interaction in the Real World (MIRW), pp. 15-25, ISBN 978-3-8142-2134-2. Amsterdam, September 2008. See: http://mirw08.offis.de/
Kray, C., K. Cheverst, M. Harrison, F. Hamhoum and J. Wagner (2008) Towards a location model for indoor navigation support through public displays and mobile devices, in Proc. of Intl Workshop on Mobile Interaction in the Real World (MIRW), pp. 15-25, ISBN 978-3-8142-2134-2. Amsterdam, September 2008. See: http://mirw08.offis.de/
Taylor, N., K. Cheverst, A. Dix, P. Silva and M. Rouncefield The Co-realisation of a Village Photo Display, in proc of CHI '08 international workshop on Collocated social practices surrounding photos, Florence, Italy, April 2008. See: http://research.microsoft.com/~ast/chi/photo_workshop/
Cheverst, K., D. Fitton, N. Taylor, J. Muller and C. Kray (2007) Experiences of Supporting Local and Remote Mobile Phone Interaction in Situated Public Display Deployments, in proc of CHI '08 international workshop on Designing and Evaluating Mobile Phone-Based Interaction with Public Displays, Florence, Italy, April 2008. See: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~corina/CHI08Workshop/
Cheverst, K., A. Krüger, J. Müller and N. Taylor (2007) Considering the Evaluation and Design of (Public) Situated Displays: Enabling Users to Choose Amongst Different Design Alternatives In-situ, in Proc. of 1st International Workshop on Evaluating Ubiquitous Systems with Users: Current Issues and Novel Approaches. Darmstadt, Germany. November 2007. See: http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/c.kray/ubieval.html
Fitton, D. Cheverst, K. M. Rouncefield and Dix,A. (2007) Exploring Adoption in the Hermes Door Display Deployment, in Proc. of 1st International Workshop on Ubicomp in the Office, pp 141-125. Ubicomp 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-022599-4. September 2007. See: http://www.dus.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de/events/ucito/index.html
Saslis-Lagoudakis G., Cheverst, K. and D. Fitton, Hermes@Home: Keeping in touch with the home, in proc of 9th Human Centred Technology Workshop, September 2006, See: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/events/hctw2006/programme.html
Graham, C., K. Cheverst, and M. Rouncefield, (2005). Whose Probe is it Anyway?, in Proc. Of International Workshop on Appropriate Methods for Design in Complex and Sensitive Settings, OzCHI, November 2005.
Cheverst, K., A. Dix, D. Fitton, C. Graham, C. Kray, M. Rouncefield, and G. Saslis-Lagoudakis, (2005) Probing Designs: Designing Probes, in Proc. Of International Workshop on Appropriate Methods for Design in Complex and Sensitive Settings, OzCHI, November 2005.
Rouncefield, M., K. Cheverst, A. Dix, M. Gibbs and C. Graham, Workshop Position Paper: Understanding space, place and 'community', in Proc of Interact ’05 workshop on ‘Space, Place and Experience in HCI’, see: http://www.infosci.cornell.edu/place/, Sept 2005
Cheverst, K., A. Dix, D. Fitton, C. Kray, M. Rouncefield, G. Saslis-Lagoudakis, J. G. sheridan, Exploring Mobile Phone Interaction with Situated Displays, in Proc. of 1st International Workshop on Pervasive Mobile Interaction Devices (PERMID 2005), May 2005. See: http://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/permid2005/
Graham, C., K. Cheverst, D. Fitton, and M. Rouncefield, How Do You Turn A Duck Into A Soul Singer? Put It In The Microwave Until Its Bill Withers: Some social features of a simple technology, 1st International Forum on Less is More - Simple Computing in an Age of Complexity, Cambridge, April 2005. See: http://research.microsoft.com/conferences/LessIsMore/
Keith Cheverst, Mark Rouncefield et al, OzCHI ’05 International Workshop on Appropriate Methods for Design in Complex and Sensitive Settings, November 2005.
Mark Rouncefield et al, OzCHI ‘05 Tutorial on Fieldwork and Interdisciplinary Design. Hosted at the Australasian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (OZCHI2005). Canberra, Australia. 21st November 2005.
Dan Fitton et al, Pervasive ’06 International Workshop on Pervasive Mobile Interaction Devices (PERMID 2006), May 2006, See: http://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/permid2006/
Alan Dix & Corina Sas, CHI '08 international workshop on Designing and Evaluating Mobile Phone-Based Interaction with Public Displays. April 2008. See: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~corina/CHI08Workshop/
Alan Dix, Interaction with and through the mobile, tutorial at First International Workshop on Mobile and Kinetic User Interfaces - Fribourg, Switzerland, 13-14 Oct. 2008: See: http://diuf.unifr.ch/pai/events/MobiKUI08/
Nick Taylor, Keith Cheverst et al, OzCHI 2008 Workshop on Public and Situated Displays to Support Communities. See: http://wraydisplay.lancs.ac.uk/ozchi08/