abstract: This thesis investigates the role of activity visualization tools in increasing group awareness at the workspace. Today, electronic calendaring tools are widely used in the workplace. The primary function is to enable each person maintain a work schedule. They also are used to schedule meetings and share work details when appropriate. However, a key limitation of current tools is that they do not enable people in the workplace to understand the activity of the group as a whole. A tool that increases group awareness would promote reflection; it would enable thoughtful engagement with one's co-workers. I have developed two tools: the first tool enables the worker to examine detailed task information of one's own tasks, within the context of his/her peers' anonymized task data. The second tool is a public display to promote group reflection. I have used an iterative design methodology to refine the tools. I developed ActivityStream desktop tool that enables users to examine the detailed information of their own activities and the aggregate information of other peers' activities. ActivityStream uses a client-server architecture. The server collected activity data from each user by parsing RSS feeds associated with their preferred online calendaring and task management tool, on a daily basis. The client software displays personalized aggregate data and user specific tasks, including task types. The client display visualizes the activity data at multiple time scales. The activity data for each user is represented though discrete blocks; interacting with the block will reveal task details. The activity of the rest of the group is anonymized and aggregated. ActivityStream visualizes the aggregated data via Bezier curves. I developed ActivityStream public display that shows a group people's activity levels change over time to promote group reflection. In particular, the public display shows the anonymized task activity data, over the course of one year. The public display visualizes data for each user using a Bezier curve. The display shows data from all users simultaneously. This representation enables users to reflect on the relationships across the group members, over the course of one year. The survey results revealed that users are more aware of their peers' activities in the workspace. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Electrical Engineering 2010

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how Digital Signage systems such as public info kiosks can be designed to better fulfill its main use; to enlighten, encourage and influence the public with information. The challenges presented from earlier studies shows that the public interests and goals, together with proper and relevant content displayed in info kiosks have impact on the attention the public have towards public displays. Qualitative methods such as interviews, usability testing and observations were conducted to further examine how a public info kiosk can be designed to draw attention and grow interest amongst students at K3, Malmo University. Usability testing were used on the digital prototypes that were developed to ensure that the gestural user interface meet the requirements of a proper interaction from the users. Important insights were made concerning; the attention and interest to relevant content, the aspects of the gestural user interface along with the placement of the info kiosk in terms of context. These key factors need to be properly investigated and developed to ensure a better deployment of a public info kiosk. It is suggested that using the principles of interaction design by doing research and studies of public interest and needs, and optimizing it by taking the specific context of place and time in account when a designing content. The results from this thesis suggests that an installation of a public info kiosk will successfully earn the attention and interest from the public if the content is relevant and interesting to the specific public. It is also important that the systems perform well in terms of software and hardware to allow a fluid and intuitive interaction with the gestural user interface.

L’informatique ubiquitaire est graduellement devenue une réalité, nous utilisons divers dispositifs pour travailler et s’amuser (l’ordinateur, le portable, le smartphone). Au-delà des dispositifs personnels, les citoyens obtiennent des informations par les écrans publics qui sont présents partout dans les villes: l’abribus, l’aéroport, le centre commercial, etc. Il semble que la vision de l’informatique ubiquitaire est plus proche, cependant, l’avenir décrit par Mark Weiser est encore loin: «les technologies les plus profondes sont celles qui disparaissent». Actuellement les appareils électroniques ne sont pas assez intelligents et bien intégrés dans le contexte d’une ville. La ville intelligente (smart city) est un concept émergent pour construire une ville utilisant les technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC). Ce concept propose d’améliorer la qualité de la vie et d’augmenter l’efficacité des activités dans une ville par les TIC. Il aussi met l’accent sur les savoir-faire des citoyens pour la construction des villes. La ville intelligente est en effet un système ubiquitaire large qui comprend différent systèmes (le système de gestion trafic, le système de transport public, le système de distribution de l’énergie, etc.). Les écrans publics construisent l’une des plus importants systèmes dans une ville. Cependant, ils ne sont utilisés que pour afficher de l’information, ils sont aveugles aux utilisateurs ainsi qu’à leurs dispositifs personnels. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons de construire des écrans publics intelligents basés sur l’interaction proxémique. L’interaction proxémique est inspirée par le terme venant de la psychologie «Proxémique». La Proxémique désigne les espaces virtuels autour des êtres humains pendant la communication. Les espaces sont différents selon la culture, les lieux où l’interaction se déroule. La Proxémique a été introduite à l’interaction homme machine par S. Greenberg en 2011 et il a créé le terme d’interaction proxémique. L’interaction proxémique étudie l’interaction en fonction de la relation spatiale entre les objets. Un écran proxémique peut connaître la distance, la position, l’identité et le mouvement de l’utilisateur. Ces dimensions proxémiques sont mesurées par l’écran comme les signaux de l’interaction implicite. Par ailleurs, il peut détecter les dispositifs mobiles des utilisateurs: il peut distribuer et échanger de l’information avec les dispositifs de l’environnement. Par rapport à un écran traditionnel, un écran proxémique offre des contenus plus personnalisés et ainsi répond aux besoins immédiats des utilisateurs. Ces avantages permettent à un écran public de bien s’adapter aux exigences de la ville intelligente. Notre objectif est d’étudier la façon de relever les défis d’un écran public dans une ville intelligente par l’interaction proxémique. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous étudions les dimensions de l’interaction proxémique, et puis nous concevons un prototype d’écran proxémique grâce à différents capteurs: Kinect, Leapmotion et Webcam. Ce prototype supporte l’interaction implicite et explicite des utilisateurs pour fournir un contenu plus personnalisé aux utilisateurs, ainsi que des interactions naturelles. En outre, nous avons développé une boîte à outils pour la migration des données entre l’écran public et les appareils mobiles personnels. Avec cet outil, l’utilisateur peut télécharger des ressources à partir de l’écran, et l’écran deviendra un terminal pour recueillir les connaissances des citoyens pour la ville intelligente. Nous discutons les applications potentielles de ce prototype dans la ville intelligente, et nous proposons une application expérimentale qui est un panneau d’affichage proxémique des vols dans un aéroport. Basé sur cette application, nous avons réalisé des études utilisateurs systématiques dans notre laboratoire pour vérifier si l’interaction proxémique peut vraiment améliorer les performances d’un écran public. / Ubiquitous computing is gradually coming into reality, people use various digital devices (personal computer, laptop, tablet and smartphone) in order to study, work, entertain and communicate with each other. A city is actually a ubiquitous society, citizens get practical information from digital public displays that are installed everywhere in a city: bus station, railway station, airport or commercial center, etc. It seems that we are closing to the vision of ubiquitous computing, however, it’s still far from the vision what Mark Weiser described: the most profound technologies are those that disappear, they weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. That means in nowadays the widespread digital devices are still not intelligent enough and not well integrated, this issue is especially serious under a context of city than for personal usage condition.Smart city is a modern concept of city that seeks to improve the efficiency and quality of life by the information and communication technologies (ICTs), it as well emphasizes the importance of citizens’ knowledge for the wise management of city. The ICTs of a smart city constructs a large scale ubiquitous system, including traffic control systems, public transportation system, energy control systems, etc. In all the systems, digital public displays are one of the most important viewports that connect citizens with city. However, the public display today is only used as a screen to display information, it’s blind to the presence of users and ambient devices, these result in low efficiency of interactions, and make a city unable to take use of citizen knowledge.In this dissertation, we build an intelligent public display by the theory of proxemic interaction. Proxemic interaction is spatial related interaction patterns inspired by the psychological term: Proxemics, it studies the spatial -related interaction human to device and device to device. A proxemic interactive public display means that it is aware of user’s presence, position, movement, identity and other user related attributes, and takes these attributes as implicit inputs for interactions. Besides, it can sense ambient mobile devices and act as a hub for local deices information flows. Compared with traditional public display, proxemic interactive display can provide specific users with more personal related and instant - need information rather than provide general information to all users. That means to make displays sense users instead of making users explore displays exhaustively. These advantages make a proxemic display more adapt to the prospect of smart city.Our object is to study how to address the challenges of public display in a smart city by proxemic interaction. Towards this object, we study the dimensions of proxemic interaction, and build a prototype of proxemic interactive projected display with Kinect, Leap motion and web camera. This prototype supports implicit and explicit interaction of users to provide more personalized contents to users, as well as natural interactions. Furthermore, we developed a toolkit for data migration between public display and personal mobile devices, so that public display becomes aware of ambient users’ devices, users can download resources from public displays freely, while public displays can be as a terminal to collect knowledge of citizens for smart city.We discuss the potential applications of this prototype under smart city, and build an experimental application of proxemic airport flight information board. Based on this experimental application, we organized a systematic laboratory user study to validate whether proxemic interaction can really improve the performance of public displays

This thesis investigates which type of user-related/-generated, personal, information is appropriate to share on an interactive public display in a public environment, e.g., user’s names and images, as a mean to enhance interactions with public display applications. This investigation is two-fold, how the content on the public display could be personalized and how interactions with the application can be emphasized. As a specific case of a public display application, an interactive shared music system with a collaborative playlist is chosen. A survey with static prototypes was created and sent out to identify which information users find appropriate sharing, regarding privacy and xyz, but also what information they feel interesting sharing. 47 participants answered the survey and the results informed an iterative design process that generated a series of static and four interactive prototypes. Four groups with three participants in each (third group with only two) were used to discuss the interactive prototypes highlighting the implemented features. In a focus group style setting, the participants were asked various questions for each of the four prototypes addressing this and that. During the sessions, notes were taken, and it was also audio recorded. All the data from all groups were analyzed and then also compared between the four groups. The result showed that people are ok with sharing their username and first name. The content on the music system can be personalized with pop-up notifications which show information about user’s choices, what song do they vote for or what song do they add to the playlist. Furthermore, the new features indicated a positive effect.

No description available.

My thesis pursues the development of a tool to empower designers and non-designers to better understand humor’s function in design and to encourage the use of humor as a rhetorical device to undertake social problems. Humor research is a field that is largely based on linguistic studies, but because of its multidisciplinary stretch in the past decade has displayed a broad rhetorical influence; however, it has yet to form a substantial relationship with design. Through a literature review of linguistic, rhetorical, and design theories, I identified a set of heuristics that guide how humor should operate in design. I then tested the effectiveness of the heuristics, and with their final revision, applied them to designing for motivational problems associated with public displays of political mobilization. My user research inferred the creation of a mobile instructional tool that guides the collaborative and/or individual production of political communication artifacts (e.g. rally signs), which use humor to confront socially complex issues. The artifacts’ implicit intent is to motivate political mobilization and to found and/or empower communities. My project focus entails the creation and testing of the tool on the individual level. Whether the artifacts created produce the desired effect regarding mobilization and community strength is unknown; Future work should lend itself to testing humorous design’s effect on political mobilization and ability to empower communities.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 DissVARF.pdf: 6948850 bytes, checksum: d3b741c4c9de46c3ebb889107367b3e3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-10-05 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Third places, a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe places other than home (first place) or workplace (second place), places where people attend to socialize with others besides co-workers and family. Third places provide neutral ground for people to express themselves freely, necessary for civil society and civic engagement, helping to create in their regulars the feeling of belonging. Parks, cafes, bakeries, museums, theaters, churches, bars and squares are examples of third places. These places have a key role in community life forging their cultural profile. Such places are characterized by being democratic and accessible, allowing people to discuss politics, the last football game, or the next music festivals, strengthening the notion of community. However, the modern lifestyle and the potential lack of third places can lead people to be more solitary or even have fewer opportunities to attend places that promote socialization, affecting the quality of life and the sense of community. In this context, this research explores how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can provide people opportunities for socializing in a third place, but unlike Oldenburg, independent of the location constraints and time, creating the phenomenon defined as thirdplaceness. Thus, it is expected to use ICTs to go beyond the traditional third places, providing opportunities for people to meet and socialize, reinforcing and extending the concept of third place, as well as confronting the stigma of isolation using technologies. To experience the support of ICTs to thirdplaceness even when there is no conventional third places to bring the community together, it is considered in this proposal the development and the use of an ICT interactive public art installation, called WishBoard. This installation explores the potential of interactions between mobile devices and public displays, allowing people to share with the community messages and their individual aspirations. This public sharing would be the opportunity for people to socialize in that space during the deployment. From the analysis of the shared messages, it was analyzed the role of ICTs to promote thirdplaceness and found evidence the cultural profile of the community in the shared anonymous messages. Considering the content of messages and the behavior of people, it was noticed that the use of public displays combined with interaction on mobile devices can promote a transformation of the place into a meeting place and conversation when they provide a way for individual self-expression and contemplation by the community that expression, causing engagement among people. / Terceiros espaços (do inglês, third places), termo cunhado pelo sociólogo Ray Oldenburg para descrever outros locais que não a casa (primeiro espaço) nem o local de trabalho (segundo espaço), locais que as pessoas frequentam para se socializarem com outros além dos colegas de trabalho e da família. Os terceiros espaços fornecem o espaço neutro para as pessoas se expressarem livremente, necessário para a sociedade civil e o engajamento cívico, ajudando a criar nos seus frequentadores o sentimento de pertencimento. Parques, cafés, padarias, museus, teatros, igrejas, bares e praças são exemplos de terceiros espaços. Esses locais têm um papel fundamental na vida das comunidades forjando o perfil cultural delas. Tais locais são caracterizados por serem democráticos e acessíveis, permitindo que as pessoas discutam política, o último jogo de futebol, ou o show que vai acontecer, fortalecendo assim a noção de comunidade. Contudo, o estilo de vida moderno e a potencial falta de terceiros espaços podem levar as pessoas a serem mais solitárias ou mesmo a terem menos oportunidades para frequentar locais que promovam a socialização, afetando a qualidade de vida e a noção de comunidade. Nesse contexto, esta pesquisa explora como as Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TICs) podem proporcionar às pessoas oportunidades de socialização em um terceiro espaço, mas diferente de Oldenburg, independente das restrições de localidade e de tempo, criando o fenômeno definido como thirdplaceness. Assim, almeja-se usar as TICs para ir além dos tradicionais terceiros espaços, provendo oportunidades às pessoas de se reunirem e se socializarem, reforçando e estendendo o conceito de terceiro espaço, bem como confrontando o estigma de isolamento pelo uso de tecnologias. Para experimentar o apoio de TICs ao thirdplaceness mesmo quando não se tem terceiros espaços convencionais para reunir a comunidade, considera-se neste trabalho o desenvolvimento e uso de uma instalação computacional pública e interativa chamada WishBoard. Essa instalação explora o potencial das interações entre dispositivos móveis e displays públicos, permitindo às pessoas compartilharem com a sua comunidade mensagens e as suas aspirações individuais. Esse compartilhamento público seria a oportunidade para a socialização naquele local durante a instalação. A partir da análise das mensagens compartilhadas, foi analisado o papel das TICs para promover thirdplaceness e foram encontrados indícios do perfil cultural daquela comunidade nas mensagens compartilhadas anonimamente. Considerando o conteúdo das mensagens e comportamento das pessoas, percebeu-se que o uso de displays públicos combinados com a interação por dispositivos móveis pode promover uma transformação do local em um local de encontro e conversa quando fornecem uma forma para autoexpressão individual e contemplação pela comunidade dessa expressão, provocando o engajamento entre as pessoas.