Table of Contents

VOLUME XIII.4 July + August 2006

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  • In this issue

    • In this issue

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      Welcome to the first of two special issues dedicated to the world of handheld devices. Bruno von Niman and Manfred Tscheligi have assembled a broad survey of HCI and gadgets, from cell phones to PDAs, design stories to usability. The power you hold in your hand has increased exponentially…

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  • Fresh: rant

    • Spoiled brats

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      As many people know, one way of analyzing interaction design and system behavior is to do something that has many different names, but usually sounds something like dialog analysis. Dialog analysis is the process of analyzing the software interaction as if the system is a human being who is…

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  • Fresh: ok/cancel

    • Gadget positioning system

      Tom Chi, Kevin Cheng

      ins01 ©2006 ACM1072-5220/06/0700$5.00 Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full…

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  • Fresh: ask Doctor Usability

    • The globalization malaise

      Dr. Usability

      Dear Doctor Usability, My boss makes me fly all over the world to exotic locations. I go to great, interesting places like Shanghai, Mumbai, Paris, Berlin, Seoul, London, Rio, and Sunnyvale. My problem is, all I ever get to see is airports, hotels, and office cubes, which, quite frankly,…

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  • Fresh: nuts & bolts

    • Dear notebook

      Joshua Larrabee

      Dear Notebook, It's been coming for a while; been working through the freshen-up exercise, giving the Palm OS (OS 6, Cobalt, one that most people haven't seen) a new look and feel. You can't design a new look and feel without figuring out what fonts to use. The concept…

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  • Open for business

    • Driving devices

      Brian Frank

      Developing interfaces for mobile devices has become big business as companies have begun to realize that the number of mobile devices in the world easily eclipses the units of traditional desktop computers. In the mobile-phone space, in particular, you can pick up books written by the likes of the…

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  • Connections

    • Corporate UX—-

      Tobias Herrman

      Downloading ringtones, games, or wallpapers from mobile infotainment portals, using off-board navigation systems while strolling around in a European metropolis, ordering parking or event tickets via SMS, paying with your mobile phone everywhere you like, satisfying your need for security with your 3G-enabled wireless home observation system, browsing the…

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  • Here's entertainment

    • What works?

      Dennis Wixon

      In a previous column, I addressed the question "What is a game?" In that column, I reviewed the essential characteristics of games that differentiate them from productivity applications: Games focus on activity and not results. Games focus on rules and not scenarios. Games are designed with chance elements. Playing…

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  • Under development

    • Digital libraries for the developing world

      Ian Witten

      Digital libraries (DLs) are the killer app for information technology in developing countries. Priorities here include health, agriculture, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, and safe drinking water. Computers are not a priority, but simple, reliable access to targeted information meeting these basic needs certainly is. DLs can assist human development by…

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  • Gadgets '06

    • Introduction

      Bruno Niman, Manfred Tscheligi

      Information and communication technologies play an increasingly important role in many people's everyday lives. Interoperable mobile communication systems and services are becoming truly global and mass market, decreasing digital divides. New applications and services are used increasingly to perform either necessary or just time-filling, entertaining tasks. If used as…

    • The music is the message

      Matt Jones, Steve Jones

      Lost in Music? Picture this. A young woman, head back, swaying gracefully, lost in the music being played by her tiny mobile audio appliance. She's standing waiting for a train. Other commuters swarm nearby, headphones on, listening in more muted ways to the soundtracks they've chosen to accompany today's…

    • Mobile video recording in context

      Erika Reponen, Pertti Huuskonen, Kristijan Mihalic

      "CAMERAS NOT ALLOWED," warns a sign at the door of a Helsinki venue, where we are queuing up for a rock concert. That is a reasonable order, but one that is almost impossible to control. While many of us carry digital cameras, even more people carry mobile phones with…

    • Mobile navigation support for pedestrians

      Manfred Tscheligi, Reinhard Sefelin

      People who are on the move need to complete navigational tasks. They have to go from A to B as fast, efficiently, and safely as possible. Often navigation is not their main activity; they have something else to complete between the two points (particularly in stressful situations). They have…

    • Multimodal warehouse application

      Samir Raiyani, Janaki Kumar

      Does multimodality increase the efficiency of warehouse workers? This is the question that our team at SAP sought to answer. SAP is a software company specializing in providing enterprise solutions, including a warehouse management system used by customers worldwide. The goal of our project was to enhance an existing…

    • Notes from China

      Chris Ben

      As the world knows, the Chinese economy is in a stable development pattern, developing rapidly and growing every year. China is a vast land rich with resources and a huge consumer base. The telecommunications market has been growing into one of the most successful industries in China. In 2005,…

    • Point, push, pull

      Akio Yoshioka, Hiroyuki Toki, Noboru Takahashi, Shunji Ito

      ACCESS CO., LTD. is a global provider of Internet technologies to the mobile and beyond-PC markets. It is the world's leading software-licensing company for embedded systems, with over 2.3 billion units and 800 devices. Its NetFront browser, widely recognized as one of the most advanced Internet browsers in the…

    • Your phone automatically caches your life

      Youngho Rhee, Jaehwan Kim, Amy Chung

      Imagine the moments you carry throughout your life, the ones you share with friends and family. Imagine having those special occasions at your fingertips without any effort. Those moments depict who you are and describe what you've done. The mobile handset helps log your every moment, analyzes your social…

    • Leveraging the context of use in designing networked services

      Boyd Groot

      The long-predicted convergence of technologies is finally happening. At a mind-boggling pace, traditionally separated industries, channels, media, global regions, and even social groups are converging by means of digital information technology [1]. The mobile telecommunications industry is converging with the entertainment and media industry. Consumer electronics is converging with…

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  • People: the way I see it

    • Why doing user observations first is wrong

      Donald Norman

      How many times have you had to fight hard for the ability to do field studies and other observations at the very start of the project? How many times have you patiently explained that taking time now would be rewarded by faster time to market overall? And how many…

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  • People: fast forward

    • Wit and wisdom

      Aaron Marcus

      Who ya gonna call? Recently, I received the latest issue, the third edition, of The Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, edited by Dr. Gavriel Salvendy. I am awed and amazed by this massive tome, with its long and distinguished list of advisory board members (25) and even longer…

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  • Books

    • Review of “Mobile Interaction Design by Matt Jones and Gary Marsden”, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., ISBN 0470090898, $60.00

      Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      As a designer of mobile interaction and a manager of the process in my company, but also an instructor in interaction design and information systems management, I look for books that balance the academic perspective with the practitioner's perspective. I particularly treasure readability, applicability, and high value for the…

    • New & upcoming titles

      Gerard Torenvliet

      Web Engineering: The Discipline of Systematic Development Gerti Kappel, Birgit Pröll, Siegried Reich, Werner Retschitzegger, editors John Wiley & Sons, July 2006 ISBN: 0470015543 $60.00 Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life Gerard Goggin Routledge, August 2006 ISBN: 0415367441 $26.95 Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile…

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  • People: timelines

    • Death of a sugar daddy

      Jonathan Grudin

      MOTION 1: RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, Inc. ("AFIPS") shall be and is hereby dissolved, such dissolution to become effective as soon as possible. — Minutes of the AFIPS Board of Directors Dissolution Meeting, October 13, 1990 AFIPS, the formerly wealthy parent of ACM, IEEE,…

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  • Event planner

    • Event planner

      interactions Staff

      July 5-7 IV06 10th International Conference on Information Visualization London, UK www.graphicslink.co.uk/IV06 July 12-14 SOUPS Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security Pittsburgh, PA, USA http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/soups July 13-15 IWIPS 2006 International Workshop on Internationalization of Products and Systems Lawrence, KS, USA www.iwips2006.org July 23-25 Smart Graphics 2006…

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  • People: on the edge

    • Tagging the world

      Lars Holmquist

      Many interaction technologies experience a brief period of hype in industry and academia, after which they are summarily forgotten. But as the technological landscape changes, some make a surprising comeback. One such technology is electronic tagging. Tagging has been around since the barcode; it simply means that you place…

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  • Rave

    • Delight design

      Jonathan Arnowitz, Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson

      Many products delight the user because their designers understand users' needs and design products to deliver on them. How do you create a delightful product? Users are delighted when a routine action is no longer needed because the technology and design have cooperated to acknowledge and accommodate user behavior…

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  • Postcards from the future

    • Doomsday

      Atticus Wolrab

      ©2006 ACM1072-5220/06/0700$5.00 Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation…

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