The size of a mobile device is primarily determined by the size of the touchscreen. As such, researchers have found that the way to achieve ultimate mobility is to abandon the screen altogether. These wearable devices are operated using hand gestures, voice commands or a small number of physical buttons. By abandoning the screen these devices also abandon the currently dominant spatial interaction style (such as tapping on buttons), because, seemingly, there is nothing to tap on. Unfortunately this design prevents users from transferring their learned interaction knowledge gained from traditional touchscreen-based devices. In this dissertation, I present Imaginary Interfaces, which return spatial interaction to screenless mobile devices. With these interfaces, users point and draw in the empty space in front of them or on the palm of their hands. While they cannot see the results of their interaction, they obtain some visual and tactile feedback by watching and feeling their hands interact. After introducing the concept of Imaginary Interfaces, I present two hardware prototypes that showcase two different forms of interaction with an imaginary interface, each with its own advantages: mid-air imaginary interfaces can be large and expressive, while palm-based imaginary interfaces offer an abundance of tactile features that encourage learning. Given that imaginary interfaces offer no visual output, one of the key challenges is to enable users to discover the interface's layout. This dissertation offers three main solutions: offline learning with coordinates, browsing with audio feedback and learning by transfer. The latter I demonstrate with the Imaginary Phone, a palm-based imaginary interface that mimics the layout of a physical mobile phone that users are already familiar with. Although these designs enable interaction with Imaginary Interfaces, they tell us little about why this interaction is possible. In the final part of this dissertation, I present an exploration into which human perceptual abilities are used when interacting with a palm-based imaginary interface and how much each accounts for performance with the interface. These findings deepen our understanding of Imaginary Interfaces and suggest that palm-based Imaginary Interfaces can enable stand-alone eyes-free use for many applications, including interfaces for visually impaired users. / Die Größe mobiler Geräte ist vornehmlich bestimmt durch die Größe des Berührungsbildschirms. Forscher haben daher erkannt, dass der Weg zur äußersten Mobilität in der kompletten Aufgabe des Bildschirms liegt. Solche tragbaren Geräte werden durch Handgesten, Sprachbefehle oder eine kleine Anzahl physikalischer Tasten gesteuert. Mit der Aufgabe des Bildschirms geben diese Geräte allerdings auch den momentan weitverbreiteten Stil räumlicher Interaktion auf (zum Beispiel das Betätigen von Tasten), da scheinbar nichts existiert, das man betätigen kann. Leider verhindert diese Entwicklung, dass Benutzer Interaktionswissen, welches sie sich auf herkömmlichen berührungsempflindlichen Geräten angeeignet haben, anwenden können. In dieser Doktorarbeit stelle ich Imaginary Interfaces vor, imaginäre Benutzerschnittstellen, die räumliche Interaktionen auf bildschirmlosen mobilen Geräten ermöglichen. Diese Schnittstellen erlauben Benutzern, im leeren Raum vor ihnen oder auf ihren Handfläche zu zeigen und zu zeichnen. Zwar können Benutzer die Ergebnisse ihrer Interaktion nicht sehen, sie erhalten jedoch visuelle und taktile Rückmeldung dadurch, dass sie ihre Hände während der Interaktion beobachten und fühlen. Nach der Einführung des Imaginary Interfaces Konzepts stelle ich zwei Hardware-Prototypen vor, die zwei verschiedene Arten von Interaktionen mit Imaginary Interfaces demonstrieren, jeweils mit ihren eigenen Vorteilen: Imaginary Interfaces in der Luft können groß und ausdrucksstark sein, während Imaginary Interfaces basierend auf Handflächen eine Fülle von taktilen Merkmalen aufweisen, die das Erlernen unterstützen. Die fehlende visuelle Ausgabe führt zu einer der Hauptherausforderungen von Imaginary Interfaces, nämlich Benutzern zu ermöglichen, die Anordnung der Benutzerschnittstellen herauszufinden. Diese Doktorarbeit stellt drei Lösungen vor: vorheriges Lernen mit Koordinaten, Durchsuchen mit Tonrückmeldung und Lernen durch Transfer. Letztere demonstriere ich mit Imaginary Phone, einem Imaginary Interface basierend auf Handflächen, das die den Benutzern schon vertraute Anordnung eines physikalischen Mobiltelefons imitiert. Obwohl diese Lösungen die Interaktion mit Imaginary Interfaces ermöglichen, können sie keine Aussage darüber treffen, warum eine solche Interaktion möglich ist. Im letzten Teil dieser Doktorarbeit untersuche ich, welche menschlichen Wahrnehmungsfähigkeiten während der Interaktion mit Imaginary Interface basierend auf Handflächen genutzt werden und zu welchem Ausmaß jede dieser Wahrnehmungsfähigkeiten zur Effizienz bei der Benutzung beiträgt. Diese Ergebnisse vertiefen unser Verständnis von Imaginary Interfaces und legen nahe, dass Imaginary Interfaces basierend auf Handflächen die eigenständige und blickfreie Benutzung von vielen Anwendungen ermöglichen können, eingeschlossen Benutzerschnittstellen für sehbehinderte Benutzer.

Nowadays, increasing numbers of people do travel research on their smartphones. More precisely, digital maps provide locational information, which is important during the planning process. However, smartphones are restricted by their small screen size, resulting in fragmented information delivery; also, the design of digital maps lacks features. The aims of this study are to investigate users’ travel-planning behavior on smartphones, identify the pain points and missing contexts when using digital maps on smartphones, and provide design guidelines for future digital map design. The study was done by conducting a travel-planning activity and a codesign workshop to bring users into the design process, promote in-depth discussion, and explore a new design possibility for digital maps with users. The results showed that people’s goals when planning travel include reducing their workload, improving effectiveness, and ensuring flexibility. People use digital maps to support not only information searching but also information compiling, including saving locations and routes. In addition, several difficulties have been pointed out: cross-platform planning, information hierarchy, and retrieval on digital maps.

This thesis explores new mobile media sharing applications by building, deploying, and studying their use. While we share media in many different ways both on the web and on mobile phones, there are few ways of sharing media with people physically near us. Studied were three designed and built systems: Push!Music, Columbus, and Portrait Catalog, as well as a fourth commercially available system – Foursquare. This thesis offers four contributions: First, it explores the design space of co-present media sharing of four test systems. Second, through user studies of these systems it reports on how these come to be used. Third, it explores new ways of conducting trials as the technical mobile landscape has changed. Last, we look at how the technical solutions demonstrate different lines of thinking from how similar solutions might look today. Through a Human-Computer Interaction methodology of design, build, and study, we look at systems through the eyes of embodied interaction and examine how the systems come to be in use. Using Goffman’s understanding of social order, we see how these mobile media sharing systems allow people to actively present themselves through these media. In turn, using McLuhan’s way of understanding media, we reflect on how these new systems enable a new type of medium distinct from the web centric media, and how this relates directly to mobility. While media sharing is something that takes place everywhere in western society, it is still tied to the way media is shared through computers. Although often mobile, they do not consider the mobile settings. The systems in this thesis treat mobility as an opportunity for design. It is still left to see how this mobile media sharing will come to present itself in people’s everyday life, and when it does, how we will come to understand it and how it will transform society as a medium distinct from those before. This thesis gives a glimpse at what this future will look like. / <p>At the  time of doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Submitted.</p> / Mobile Life Centre

Visualizations, web technologies and mobile devices are subjects which are trending nowadays in the world of technology and many research projects are tackling different issues. The originality of the thesis is in the aspect of bringing all these mentioned subjects together and providing findings that will help web designers when implementing visualizations for mobile phones. The thesis explores the use of web technologies for the visualization of complex data for mobile devices, both looking at the technical state of the art and capabilities, and at the difference in information needs for users in a mobile usage context. The first part deals with an in-depth research of the existing projects that deal with similar issues, analyzing the official documentation of the technologies and the community of developers. The other part of the research is focused on providing insights on the required changes for adapting to the needs of mobile device users by doing a usability testing on a specific visualization. The results provide information valuable for adapting visualizations, such as font sizes, color combinations, animation complexity and data simplicity. The use case that is used for feeding the visualizations with data belongs to the domain of eco visualizations, in particular dealing with sustainable food consumption.

Denna uppsats redovisar en studie i hur en söktjänst på Internet kan kompletteras, antingen via en mobilapplikation eller genom en responsiv webbplats, för att underlätta användning via en smartphone. Fokus för undersökningen ligger på Riksarkivets söktjänst Nationell ArkivDatabas (NAD) som för tillfället inte är anpassad till mobila enheter. Vårt mål är även att undersöka hur inställningen ser ut för applikationer och responsiva webbplatser bland användare samt hur dessa åsikter skiljer sig mellan olika användarmålgrupper. Tillsammans med information från tidigare forskning har en studie utförs för att undersöka för- och nackdelar mellan appar respektive responsiva webbplatser. I våra undersökningar har vi valt att använda oss av två datainsamlingsmetoder: en kvantitativ webbenkät och semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer, som komplement till varandra. Totalt nio intervjuer har gjorts med tre personer ur varje Riksarkivets huvudmålgrupper. En webbenkät har även publicerats på Riksarkivets och Stockholms stadsarkivs webbplatser. / This paper reports a study in how a search service on the Internet can be completed either through a mobile application or through a responsive website, to facilitate use on a smartphone. The focus of the study is on the National Archives' search service National Archives Database (NAD), which is not currently adapted to mobile devices. Our aim is also to investigate how the attitude looks for applications and responsive websites among users and how these views differ between user groups. Together with data from previous research, a study was conducted to examine the pros and cons between apps and responsive websites. In our investigations we have chosen to use two methods of data collection: a quantitative web survey and semi-structured qualitative interviews, to complement each other. A total of nine interviews were conducted with three members from each of National Archives' main target groups. An online survey has also been published on the National Archives and Stockholm stadsarkivs websites.