Continuing with the idea that ubiquitous computing is messy, Antti Oulasvirta writes about his research in Interactions, which includes the following recommendations:
Minimizing overheads that create temporal seams between activities;
Making remote but important resources, such as connectivity or cables, better transparent locally and digitally;
Propagating metadata on migration of data from device to device;
Supporting ad hoc uses [...]
Nicholas Nova lists out some of his recommended ubicomp reads.
“A reader of this blog recently asked me if I had tips about relevant paper to read concerning Ubiquitous Computing that has been released in the last 2 years…”
Link: Good reads on Ubiquitous Computing (liftlab.com)
This collection of presentations and papers on medical devices helps shed some light on the only dimly illuminated world of medical device design (why is there so little written on this topic?!). Some interesting pieces about topics including diabetes, asthma and remote telemedicine.
“The proliferation of inexpensive mobile devices, in-home medical appliances, and personal health record [...]
Jonathon Donner has published a survey of research approaches to mobile use in developing countries. An interesting survey with loads of references. See Jonathon’s site for more of his publications.
“In particular, a few kinds of studies seem most popular: those which focus on the mobile as a tool for new forms of instrumental communication and [...]
“Women in technology & culture : An in-progress list of women researchers, designers & artists working in pervasive computing-related fields.”
Link: Women researchers, designers & artists working in pervasive computing-related fields (purselipsquarejaw.org)
A blog about the Nokia Series 60.
Link: S60 User Experience (s60.com)
UPDATED – My mistake: this blog is not published by Nokia.
“We have captured communication, proximity, location, and activity information from 100 subjects at MIT over the course of the 2004-2005 academic year. This data represents over 350,000 hours (~40 years) of continuous data on human behavior. Such rich data on complex social systems have implications for a variety of fields. The research questions we are [...]
Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools provides regular doses of inspiration. This world time clock, for example. Roll it around for different time zones.
(image from Cool Tools)
Link: Cool Tools (kk.org)
Jan Chipchase’s blog is a wonderful source of visual and written inspiration. Working for User Exerperience research group at Nokia, Jan posts pithy and interesting stuff (such as this photograph of a trishaw driver in Lhasa using a RAZR).
(photograph from janchipchase.com – Unexpecting the Expected)
Link: future perfect (janchipchase.com)
A short extract from the book “Designing for Small Screens”.
“Physical interaction Interaction with small-screen devices reveals the conflict of interests between creating the smallest physical size that will give the user unrestricted mobility and flexibility, whilst maintaining dimensions that are defined by the size and the motor functions of the human hand. The balance is [...]
An omnibus research bibliography (most sources are not accessible online).
“Several people asked me (Nalini P. Kotamraju) to share my bibliography-in-progress on social science research about mobile devices, mobile phone uses, SMS/texting, and instant messaging, so here it is.”
Link: Mobile Phone/SMS/Instant Messaging Social Science Research (berkeley.edu)
Resources from Nokia about design. Some interesting stuff in there, a lot of it pitched to developers.
“Usability articles. Usability articles illustrate concrete perspectives on usability in mobile application creation. They describe in brief the most interesting issues in wireless development with end user in mind. There are success cases as well as general guidance on [...]
Mobile Community Design is ”...a frequently updated source of research and design information concerning mobile communities… [It publishes] Academic research papers, mobile design methods, conference announcements, announcements of technology that enables mobile communities, book references.”
The site has a nice chart showing the applicability of different research methods.
Link: Mobile Community Design
Published by Gabriel White.