Augmenting Collections of Everyday Objects: A Case Study of Clothes Hangers as an Information Displa

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Augmenting Collections of Everyday ObjectsA
Case Study of Clothes Hangers as an Information
Display
University of CaliforniaBerkeley

• Tara Matthews, Hans-W. Gellersen, Kristof Van
  Laerhoven, Anind K. Dey

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Overview

• Introduction
• Hanger Display
• Evaluation
• Results
• Design Considerations

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Introduction

• One goal of ubiquitous computing
• To support natural interaction technology
• One common solution
• Digitally augment everyday objects that have
  well-established functions and meanings
• Our project
• Explore how sets of everyday, physical artifacts
  can collectivelyprovide an information display
  or interactive behavior

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Collections as Interfaces

• Distinction from previous work in collections
• Everyday artifacts are individually meaningful
  entities to start with
• Reasons to explore this approach
• Use of everyday context
• Collections take advantage of spatial arrangement
• Many collections naturally exist

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Case Study The Hanger Display

• Designed and implemented a generic interface
  consisting of a collection of augmented hangers
  on a rod
• Implemented three peripheral display applications
  for the Hanger Display
• Collected formative user feedback

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The Hanger Display
?
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The Hanger Display

• Each hanger has LED attached
• Hangers form a row of LEDs
• Lighting of LEDs can mean different things (many
  possible inputs)
• Three peripheral display inputs
• Temperature
• Barometric pressure
• Remote presence

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Design Why Hangers?

• Common objects in the home, naturally formed into
  collections
• Hangers associated with
• hanging up and picking out clothes
• morning rituals
• getting ready for work or the day
• During these activities, people are interested in
  easy access to related information
• weather or their schedule to determine what to
  wear
• amount of email as an indication of how much work
  there is to do
• traffic to give an indication of commute time

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Design Why Hangers?

• Affordances
• When hanger is hung on rod, it is part of the
  application
• Reduces the need for dedicated devices
• Hangers are already part of morning activity why
  not make them more useful?

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Challenges

• Preserve natural interaction
• Technology cannot interfere with everyday use of
  hangers.
• People will want to move, add, and remove
  hangers.
• Resiliency to change
• Everyday use should not interfere with the
  technology (i.e., it should not break the
  application).

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Implementation

• Power and data supplied to LEDs via rod using
  MicroLAN protocol
• Java software on a laptop controls hanger LEDs
• Simple, cheap technology
• Resilient to change

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Formative Evaluation

• In-lab, 8 participants
• Purpose
• Obtain feedback on the concept of everyday object
  collections as interfaces
• Method
• Showed three applications to demonstrate Hanger
  Display
• Informally interacted with display
• Interview qualitative feedback
• Brainstorm new applications and interaction

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Results

• Realistic use for such displays all users
  suggested applications they would use
• Many suggestions involved more interaction,
  something afforded by physical collections
• Points to new, creative, and useful applications
  of ubiquitous computing that support activities
  in situ

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Clothing Shop Example
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Results

• Realistic use for such displays all users
  suggested applications they would use
• Many suggestions involved more interaction,
  something afforded by physical collections
• Points to new, creative, and useful applications
  of ubiquitous computing that support activities
  in situ

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Design Considerations

• Existing structures can be useful in defining
  interface scope
• Interfaces composed of everyday artifacts must be
  resilient to change
• This type of physical interface could lead to new
  interaction possibilities

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Conclusion

• Explored how sets of everyday, physical artifacts
  can collectively provide an information display
  or interactive behavior
• Benefits of everyday object collections as
  interfaces
• Everyday objects provide opportunities for useful
  applications that support activities in situ
• Collections take advantage of spatial arrangement
• Designed and implemented The Hanger Display as a
  case study
• Confirmed design considerations for such
  interfaces

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Questions or Comments?

• For more information
• http//www.eecs.berkeley.edu/tmatthew/

University of CaliforniaBerkeley
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Red LED
Power and Data
Switch
Ground