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Because I Carry My Cell Phone Anyway
Location-Based Information for Everyday Tasks

• Pam Ludford, Dan Frankowski, Ken Reily, Loren
  Terveen
• University of Minnesota, Dept. of Computer Science

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Presentation Overview

• Why location-based information?
• PlaceMail the individual use version
• Social PlaceMail favor coordination
• Local Sketch, Local Search
• How wireless cities can help

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Why Location-Based Everyday Information?

• Americans spend just over 2.5 hours a day1 at
  places such as
• shopping mall
• dry cleaner
• auto repair shop.

1. Klepis, N., Nelson, W., Ott, W., Robinson, J.,
Tsang, A., Switzer, P., Behar, J., Hern, S.,
Engelmann, W. The National Human
Activity Pattern Survey, Journal of Exposure
Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology,
May-June 2001, v. 11, n. 3, 231-252.
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Our Initial Research Findings Everyday Tasks
2 key problems
1) People are busy and they forget to do
place-based errands Example I
forgot to pick up dog food on the way home from
work

• 2) People typically use paper lists to manage
  everyday place-based errands, but lists fail
• people misplace their lists
• people dont have their lists when they need them
  
• lists are messy

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PlaceMail (Solo Version)

• Developed on the Motorola i88s GPS cell phone
• Like sending an email to yourself, except instead
  of specifying a recipient, you choose one or more
  delivery places

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Sending a (Solo) PlaceMail Message
Step 1 Users create PlaceMail messages by
entering them on a computer or cell phone. They
can create audio messages if they wish to avoid
typing.
Pick up dog food
Step 2 When creating a message, the user
specifies the place(s) where she would like to
receive the message. People might leave messages
at places like a Target store, home, or
anywhere! Behind the scenes, the application
stores the latitude and longitude of the place.
Step 3 When the user is at (or near) the place,
she receives the message on her cell
phone. Behind the scenes, the cell phones GPS
checks her location once a minute, and when she
is near a place with an outstanding message,
PlaceMail delivers it to her on her cell phone!
Pick up dog food
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Now, how about the social applications of
PlaceMail?

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Shared PlaceMail

• Like solo PlaceMail, except you can send messages
  for others, too
• Applications
• Shared family grocery list
• Helping homebound neighbors

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Enhancing Local Search

• 25 of web searches
• are for geographic local information2
• 2. Himmelstein, M., (2005). Local Search The
  Internet Is the Yellow Pages, IEEE
  Computing,Volume 38, Issue 2, p. 26- 34.

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• But current local search technology does not
  always give complete results.
• Examples
• Small businesses
• Business details
• Activities
• Area overview

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Small business exampleSt. Anthony Main Area

• Surdyks,
• Ricks Market
• Aveda Institute
• are not found.

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Business Detail Example
I am at my daughters hockey game in SW
Minneapolis and her hockey stick broke- where is
a nearby place that I can get one?
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Activity Examples

• Community Education Courses
• Local Support Groups
• Local Activities, such as playgroups
• Civic meetings

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Area Overview

• Scenarios
• A visit to the area
• Moving to a city
• Opening a business

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Custom Maps Useful, But Expensive
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• How can PlaceMail help local search?
• Local data is produced when people use the
  system
• Our research shows people are willing to let
  their PlaceMail data be used for local search,
  sketch

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Search Retail food and beverage
Surdyks - check prices on smoky gorgonzola,
Appalaichan muenster - out of wine - Wine Sale
July 3-17 - rolling rock - use coupon for dinner
special
Aveda - check if Tetrazzini salad looks good
today - get some Aveda Tea
Kramarczuks - potato kieabasa - Warsaw-spiced
sausages, 2 links - do they still have Polish
Easter spice? - corned beef for Earl, polish
burger for Ken, polish burger with sauerkraut for
Jean
Ricks Market - milk eggs watermelon cantaloupe
sour cream walnuts grapes - paper towels - bread
meat - cucumbers, carrots, milk, spaghetti sauce,
Giordanos pasta tortellini - youre out of
coffee - cheese and choc. Chip cookie dough
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• PlaceMail data collected included
• Small businesses
• Business details
• Activities

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Why a Wireless City Network? Good place
acquisition technology essential.
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Because I Carry My Cell Phone Anyway
Delivering Location-Based Information for
Everyday Tasks Authors Pam Ludford, Dan
Frankowski, Ken Reily, Loren Terveen
Background Americans spend over 2 ½ hours a day
at places like the grocery store, mall, and dry
cleaners, but struggle to organize everyday tasks
they do there. The Problems (1) People are busy
and they forget to do place-based
errands Example I forgot to pick up dog
food on the way home from work (2) People
typically use paper lists1 to manage everyday
place-based errands, but lists fail a) people
misplace their lists b) people dont have their
lists when they need them c) lists are
messy 1. 90 of subjects in a study we
conducted (see publications) use lists to manage
everyday tasks. (3) Location-based information
service designers dont know when users find it
convenient to receive location-based information
delivery. Example Jen is going to Target.
Does she find it most convenient to receive
information for the errand when she is 1 block
away from the store? 6 blocks away? 1 mile away?
Or where?
The Solution PlaceMail We developed and tested
PlaceMail. The application runs on a Motorola
i88s cell phone equipped with GPS
technology. Heres how PlaceMail works
Our Research In the summer of 2005, we conducted
an initial user study of PlaceMail. 20 subjects
from the Twin Cities participated, all of whom
are responsible for doing everyday tasks
necessary to maintain a household. Subjects used
PlaceMail for 4 weeks. Key Results (1)
Participants created 344 PlaceMail messages
during the experiment. (2) Subjects liked the
idea of receiving place-based everyday task
information on their cell phone. One subject
explained this is convenient because I carry my
cell phone anyway. (3) For 81 of messages
delivered during the study, subjects said
PlaceMail reminded them to do a task. (4) We also
learned that subjects extensively use paper lists
to manage everyday tasks, but lists have problems
(see left). In the study, 29 of PlaceMail
messages were lists. (5) The ideal spot at which
to deliver location-based information is a
function of users travel patterns through and
area and the geographic layout of the space.
Please see our publications for more
results Because I Carry My Cell Phone Anyway
Effective Everyday Task Management. In
submission, CHI 2006. A Comprehensive,
Interactive Framework for Place Acquisition.
Zhou, C., Reily, K., Ludford, P., Frankowski, D.,
Terveen, L. In submission, CHI 2006.
Step 1 Users create PlaceMail messages by
entering them on a computer or cell phone. They
can create audio messages if they wish to avoid
typing.
Pick up dog food
Step 2 When creating a message, the user
specifies the place(s) where she would like to
receive the message. People might leave messages
at places like a Target store, home, or
anywhere! Behind the scenes, the application
stores the latitude and longitude of the place
where the user wants to receive the message.
(See our publications for latitude/longitude
acquisition methods).
Step 3 When the user is at (or near) the place,
she receives the message on her cell
phone. Behind the scenes, the cell phones GPS
checks her location once a minute, and when she
is near a place with an outstanding message,
PlaceMail delivers it to her on her cell phone!
Pick up dog food
PlaceMail
Acknowledgements This research is funded by NSF
grants IIS 0307459 and CNS 0224392. We gratefully
acknowledge Kurt Wilms, John Murphy, Sean McNee,
Doreen Hartzell, and Scott Dier for their
contributions to PlaceMail. For more information,
contact Pam Ludford at ludford_at_cs.umn.edu.
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Location-Based Information What is it?

• Sensing the location of a mobile device
• Delivering relevant information to the mobile
  device based on its location
• Not necessarily location-based advertising!