Public Information Spaces
From GSLISWiki
The final paper is available here
- Problem: Various display technologies are appearing in public spaces on campus, while people are still looking for ways to best use them. Take the Siebel Center, where pasma screens and touch screen displays enhance the information content of the building. A few big plasma screens advertise department activities, and achievements to the visitors and students in the Bevande cafe, while lots of small touch screens assist people all over the building to find their way around, or look up classes. I will investigate how some technologies and functionalities can advance these displays by making them helpful, useful, inspirational, and intriguing to the users. I want to better understand the wants and needs of users in such buildings and use these findings to inform design of interactive displays in public spaces.
- Others done before: Dynamo, Flatland, Campus beeper, E-graffiti, ActiveCampus, Hermes.
- Good: Develop extensive interactive interfaces. Much work focuses on location and context aware services. I find phonecam-based interactions for large public displays quite interesting, and would like to have it integrated with my interface design. The Hermes system attempts a post-it notes display; something I would like incorporated into the final interface solution in this project.
- Bad: Do not focus on information displays like notice boards, and ways in which people use those.
- Use of Rapid Techniques:
- Persona: Dave is a second year PhD student in computer architecture. He works on the fourth floor of the siebel center in an office shared with 6 students of his research group. This fall Dave is looking to complete his core course requirements, so that he can appear for phd qualifiers in spring. Dave is registered for three courses, and has little time this semester for any extra-curricular activities. Unfortunately, his advisor is short of funds for a year, so Dave is actively searching for a graduate assistantship for one year.
- Scenario: Dave's operating systems class just got over at 10 AM. As he had to rush for the class in the morning, he couldn't take breakfast. So he darts to the Bevande cafeteria to grab some muffin before the algorithms class begins in an hour. On his way, Dave stops by a notice board next to the classroom, and reads carefully through all the notices, trying to distinguish the new ones from the ones he read a couple of days ago. The board is full of information about campus group activities, new class announcements, and upcoming conference posters. However, Dave doesn't find any notice about assistantship positions. At the cafetaria, Dave runs into Ben, who in the same research group. Ben too had been looking for a fall assistantship, and recently had found an open position. He tells Dave about the notice board on the east wall of second floor where he found his job announcement, and most announcements seems to appear there. Ben also pointed Dave to a specific campus newsgroup dedicated to student jobs. Dave takes a note of these, thanks Ben, and takes off for his algorithms class.
- Persona: Prof. Meade has been doing research within the computer science department of UIUC for 10 years. Currently, he has a large research group with twelve students. Additionally, he is serving as the director of admissions, and teaching an undergraduate class in computer architecture. Despite his tight schedule, Prof. Meade wants to stay current with ongoing activities in the department, and attend key visiting lectures.
- Scenario: Prof. Meade hastens across the hall, and past the notice board, for a computer architecture course lecture. He glances once at the notice board, and eyeballs the notices. A particular notice on a visiting lecture from stanford university looks interesting to him, and he makes a mental note. After the class, Prof. Meade returns to his office and wants his students to attend this lecture, but he is unable to recall the details.
