Exploring mobility and the open office

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Exploring mobility and the open office
Elizabeth Goodman
August 2004
Portrayal and practice
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BEGINNING OF A WORK STYLE FOR THE NEW ERA
The open office frontier visions and revisions
what is it? what could it be?
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methodsspecific goals, specific
analysisaimssurface hidden models parse
embedded assumptionsaddress actual needsprovide
foundation for system design
Methods and aims
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Activities

• creative group brainstorm
• analytic literature review
• empirical field interviews
• synthetic design framework
• beginning elaboration

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Distilling concepts from the OOF agenda to guide
research

• mobile people and information
• pervasive communications infrastructures
• flexible responses to diverse needs

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Literature review semantic analysis

• Describing computing research
• From 1995 - 2004, increase in frequency of word
  appearance (graph 1)
• Popularity of words occurring in conjunction --
  add a slide before that details specific growth
  of certain combos

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Most influential mobile ubiquitous computing
papers
Literature review discourse analysis

• Ubiquitous computing conceptual foundations

1997
1991
2001
2000

• Tangible Bits Towards Seamless Interfaces
  between People, Bits, and Atoms Hiroshi Ishii and
  Brygg Ullmer, 1997
• The Computer for the 21st Century Mark Weiser,
  1991
• Pervasive Computing Visions and Challenges M.
  Satyanarayanan, 2001
• Charting Past, Present and Future Research in
  Ubiquitous Computing Gregory D. Abowd and
  Elizabeth D. Mynatt, 2000

homogeneous and transparent access to info
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Framework visualizing end-user experience of
location
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Literature review popular portrayals of mobile
work

• What kind of open office is imagined?
• What infrastructures support it?

1997 Digital nomads
2001 Anytime, anywhere
2004 Portable office
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Beyond telecommuting comparing mobile work styles
STATIONARY
MULTI-SITE
ULTRA-MOBILE
Office
Local
Global
Stationary Centralized infrastructure provided
by business Continuous connectivity Desktop
A few nearby, predictable work sites Mixed
infrastructures provided by business and
individual Variable connectivity Laptop
Many distant, unpredictable unknown
sites Distributed infrastructure provided by
business and individual Intermittent
connectivity Cell/PDA
-

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Beyond telecommuting locally mobile workers
CONTRACT EMPLOYEES
SALESPEOPLE
INDEPENDENT CONSULTANTS

• 1999 Statistics
• only 22 of California workers had traditional
  jobs
• permanent
• full-time
• office-bound
• day-shift
• UCSF/Field Institute survey, 1999
• Kakihara, 2003
• telecommuting increased 20.6 from 1999 to 2001
  International Telework Association and Council

Loosely-coupled Self-managed Flexible routines
Related research Churchill/Wakeford (US/UK, 2001)
Pinelle/Gutwin (Canada, 2003) Kakihara
(Japan/UK, 2003) Sherry et al (US, 2004)
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Beyond telecommuting independent work
80 of independent contractors prefer their own
style of working 76 have a personal reason
for contracting (flexibility, family
obligations, school)
Why work independently?
Independent US contractors, Feb. 1997 Cohany,
1998 and Kakihara, 2003
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Fieldwork triggers for locally mobile work
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Fieldwork methods

• 12 semi-structured onsite interviews
• café observations
• home office tours

? Chip
PARTICIPANTS RECRUITED ONSITE
HOME OFFICE TOUR
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Fieldwork future questions for the open office?
Emerging themes Trust and securing
data Documenting deliverables Managing
breakdowns Exposing resources Signaling
availability Delay-tolerant scheduling
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Fieldwork emerging themes
JOAN, LEGAL EDUCATION CONSULTANT
Trust and securing data
Visualizing security Leveraging physical presence
Securely syncing devices
Some places will have a secure line and are
confident therell be someone on the other end.
Generally, people still want a piece of paper.
Design implications Psychology of security
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Documenting deliverables
Fieldwork emerging themes
I have to do EXACTLY what I say Im going to do.
So they send me something in garbled German
saying, We need this and this by next week. And
I respond by saying, I will deliver that, that,
and that by Tuesday am your time. And then I
absolutely meet that deadline, because theres no
other way for them to judge my integrity.
CARL, CONTRACT TECHNICAL WRITER
Design implications Collaborative
annotation Voice to text Lightweight multimedia
authoring
Assuring conceptual accord Self-documenting
transactions Shared documentation
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Fieldwork emerging themes
Design implications Mobile services
? System/service opacity Light-weight archival
interfaces
I backup pretty frequentlyI started when I
started working on my own. Its mission critical.
The laptop is a linchpin. If it breaks thats
the critical factor.
CHIP, MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT
Managing breakdowns
Relationship-based tech support Backing-up is
hard to do Creative fallbacks
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Fieldwork emerging themes

• Design implications
• System/service opacity
• Mobile device interfaces
• MFD interfaces

Andrew was driving in an unfamiliar city. He
needed to check his email, but couldnt find a
Starbucks. So the passenger called his wife, who
used her PC to find the closest store.
ANDREW, SALES ENGINEER
Exposing resources
Making invisible technologies visible What does
cafe IT look like?
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Fieldwork emerging themes
Signaling availability
Unpredictable work patterns Social and spatial
distance Accountability ! availability
Today is my day to get out of the office and
focus on workYoure in an office and theres
always distractions I get a few calls, but if
Im not in the office, Im not in regular
contact. Im out.
Design implications Fluid models of access and
responsibility
SUKESH, ENGINEERING CONSULTANT
I just spent 10 days in Los Angeles, because my
sister got married. But I didnt even bother
telling my company that I was out of the city.
They didnt need to know and it didnt change
anything.
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Fieldwork emerging themes
Delay-tolerant scheduling
Miss Manners of mobility? Discovering
(dis)connection Dynamic group identity
MIRI, WRITER AND TEACHER
Design implications Representing reasons for
availability Group/team activity Low-cost
indicators Monitoring urgency
You needed to have called me earlier. There
wasnt anywhere you could have been this past
week where you didnt have a phone.
If I called, someone at the other end would have
had to take notes, which might or might not have
been an accurate record of what I said was going
to happen. Ill have a phone conference and
someone will write a summary back, and then you
end up writing back to say that that wasnt what
you meant.
Its nice to compose a message, send it off, and
give people at least a little time to think about
it instead of having to respond at once.
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Open office framework from fieldwork to scenarios

• Scenario-building tool to push design
  implications
• Interrelated, visible layers
• FLASH?

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why this process?continuously evaluate project
goalsdesign for actual constraints and
triggers for usecreate scenarios that inspire
unexpected applications
Means and ends
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why this project?window into a recent
international trend in work organizationinform
development for related work rolessuggest new
system design challenges
Means and ends
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Open office framework questions for the future

• Can we create more personal and flexible
  representations of access and security that
  respond to independent and individual work
  practices?
• What scenarios will enrich our understanding of
  technology implications and drive development of
  new applications?

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Elizabeth and Les slide about new technologies
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Beyond telecommuting locally mobile workers
Kakihara, 2003