Nitin Sawhney and Chris Schmandt

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Nomadic Radio Scaleable and Contextual
Notification for Wearable Audio Messaging
Nitin Sawhney and Chris Schmandt
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Presentation Overview

• Interruptions in the Workplace?
• Problems with Messaging Devices today
• Nomadic Radio wearable audio messaging
• Usage scenario video
• Scaleable Auditory Presentation
• Contextual Notification Model
• Preliminary Evaluations
• Conclusions and Future Work

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Messaging in the Workplace

• Pitney Bowes 98 Messaging Stress Study
• Messaging at the core of most business processes
• Average workers send/receive 190 messages/day
• Shift to time-delayed communication, increased
  messaging
• 72 work asynchronously and 60 overwhelmed
• Difficulty discriminating urgent messages

Pitney Bowes Stamford CT, May 18, 1998
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Messaging in the Workplace

• Pitney Bowes 98 Messaging Strategies?
• Block out calendar time for messaging
• Turn off tools temporarily
• Leverage support people and systems
• Ask Recipients how they prefer to receive
  information

Stefan Marti, Active Messenger, MIT Media Lab
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Interruptions in the Workplace

• HP Labs 95 observational study
• Analysis of Timespace and Interruptions
• Extracted 125 interruptions from 29 hours of
  video data
• Subjects interrupted over 4 times/hr (10 mins
  spent/hr)
• Face-to-face telephone calls (20 )
• Some benefit to Recipient - 64 of interruptions
  (both 43)
• 41 interruptions recipients didn't resume prior
  work

Conaill Frohlich, CHI 95
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Interruptions in the Workplace

• HP Labs 95 Study Suggestions
• Turning off / ignoring messaging minimizes
  benefits
• Most communication technologies increase
  interruptions
• Complexity rather than duration makes it more
  disruptive
• Need very light-weight filtering mechanisms
• Move interruptions to asynchronous communication
  media

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Problems with Messaging Devices Today

• Lack of Differentiation in Notification Cues
• Minimal Awareness of User Environment
• No Learning from Prior Interactions
• Lack of Coordinated Notifications

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Messaging in Nomadic Devices
Temporal Connectivity
Situational Awareness
Richness of Modality
Transaction Overhead
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Messaging in Nomadic Radio
Temporal Connectivity
Situational Awareness
Richness of Modality
Transaction Overhead
Related Work Beth Mynatt, Audio Aura, CHI98
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Nomadic Radio wearable audio messaging
Audio Cues for
Spatial Audio for
Notification
Simultaneous
Listening
Ambient Sound
for Awareness
"New short personal
message from Chris about
Voice Recognition
Lets have Lunch
for Navigation and
Synthetic Speech
Nortel Soundbeam Neckset
Control
for Feedback
Related Work Lisa Stifelman, VoiceNotes, CHI93
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Scaleable presentation
"Hi mom, its Kathy. Can you pick me up early from
school today?"
"Hi mom, its Kathy. Can you pick me up early from
school today?"
"Hi mom, its Kathy."
"new voice msg from Kathy."
Silence
Ambient
Audio Cues
Preview
Full Body
Foreground
Summary
Progressive Scaling of Incoming Messages
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Auditory awareness and feedback

• Priority

• Feedback

• Awareness

• Identification

"Hi this is
Pattie"
"New message from
Audio Cues
"Weekly
Meeting ..."
Hiroshi Ishii ..."
for
"This is ABC News,
Notification
I'm Tim
O'Donald ..."
VoiceCue
Voice message
Message
Personal Email
Priority
Event
reminder
News Summary
Group Email
Group Email
1 sec.
0.5
secs.
3 secs.
10-15 secs.
Ambient Stream
flowing faster
during downloads
Background Ambient Audio Stream
Related Work Gaver (CHI91), Cohen 94, Hudson
(CHI96), Mynatt (CHI98)
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BBC Video Usage Scenario
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Nomadic Radio wearable audio messaging
Audio Cues for
Spatial Audio for
Notification
Simultaneous
Listening
Ambient Sound
for Awareness
"New short personal
message from Chris about
Voice Recognition
Lets have Lunch
for Navigation and
Synthetic Speech
Nortel Soundbeam Neckset
Control
for Feedback
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Contextual Notification
Ambient Noise
Auditory Awareness
User Speaking
Message Priority
Group
Sleep
Active Use
Usage Level
Timely
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Contextual Notification
Ambient Noise
Auditory Awareness
User Speaking
Message Priority
Group
Sleep
Active Use
Usage Level
Timely
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Message Priority
Rolodex
Calendar
Static Filtering Rules
Recent Emails
CLUES Filter
Incoming Message
Dynamic Rules
Priority Level
Timely, Important, Personal, Group
CLUES Matt Marx, CHI96
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Contextual Notification
Ambient Noise
Auditory Awareness
User Speaking
Message Priority
Group
Sleep
Active Use
Usage Level
Timely
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Contextual Notification
Ambient Noise
Auditory Awareness
User Speaking
Message Priority
Group
Sleep
Active Use
Usage Level
Timely
Collaborative work with Brian Clarkson, PUI98
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Contextual Notification
Notification Scale
Ambient Noise
Auditory Awareness
Audio Cue
User Speaking
Message Priority
Sleep
Active Use
Group
Usage Level
Timely
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Contextual Notification
Notification Scale
Ambient Noise
Auditory Awareness
Hello Nitin
User Speaking
Message Priority
Group
Sleep
Active Use
Usage Level
Timely
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Notification Scenario
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Dynamic Adaptation
Adaptation of notification weights based on
Janes actions while listening to messages
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Preliminary Evaluation

• Two users (2-3 weeks) - experience /w pagers
  cell-phones
• Listening while attending to other tasks in
  parallel
• Reduced concentration if message spoken while in
  conversation
• Disruption to others vs. Social cues
• Needed adaptive volume gain in changing
  environments

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Preliminary Evaluation

• Unfolding presentation provided time to switch
  attention
• Required familiarization with auditory cues
• Preference for gradual notifications rather than
  auditory tones
• Ambient audio provided reassurance and expressive
  channel
• Overall auditory scheme complex, must learn or
  simplify
• Needed ability to interrupt message easily
• Added Anticipatory Voice Window during incoming
  message

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Conclusions Future Work

• Key Design Issue Handling Interruptions
  Gracefully in Nomadic Environments
• A Scaleable and Contextual Model is Feasible
• Application of such a model on everyday devices
• PDAs, Pagers, Cell-phones, Driving
• Future Research
• Machine Learning Techniques for Notification
  Model
• Interaction Techniques for Synchronous
  Communication

Thunderwire Debby Hindus, coming up next!
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Nomadic Radio Scaleable and Contextual
Notification for Wearable Audio Messaging
Nitin Sawhney and Chris Schmandt http//www.media
.mit.edu/nitin/NomadicRadio/