Moderator: Jacek Gwizdka

Panel: Intersection of Devices (PIM mobility)

Moderator: Jacek Gwizdka

Department of Library and

Information Science

Panelists: Amy Karlson, Jakob Eg Larsen, Karl Voit

CONTACT:

www.jsg.tel

The Panelists • Karl Voit • University Assistant at Graz, University of Technology (Institute for Software Technology) • Interests: HCI research on Personal Information Management; New approaches to access stored data (information retrieval process) concerning multiple user contexts

• Amy Karlson • Researcher at Microsoft Research in the Visualization and Interaction Group • Interests: Mobile HCI with a focus on mobile productivity and supporting smoother task-flow as users move between devices, especially mobile phones and PCs

• Jakob Eg Larsen • Assistant Professor, Technical University of Denmark, DTU Informatics, Cognitive Systems Section. Head of Mobile Informatics Lab (MILAB) • Interests: Mobile HCI, Personal Information Management, Contextawareness. Mobile phones as cognitive systems applying embedded

Questions for Panelists • Workshop’s Theme: Personal information intersections: What happens when PIM spaces overlap? multiple users, one user with multiple roles, tasks, privacy and security, organizational strategies and policies

• What makes people use multiple

(mobile)

devices?

• For example: device characteristics; job-related devices, work and home devices

• Is multiplicity of devices a good thing or not? • For example: Do multiple devices help to manage separate information spaces or not (e.g., work and home)?

• Do tasks and information move between the devices? • Are the device boundaries hard to cross? Is it good or bad?

• What could help users to cross the boundaries between devices? • Could integration of information between PCs and mobile devices help? • Could contextual information help?

Questions for Panelists – Karl Voit • Workshop Theme: Personal information intersections: What happens when PIM spaces overlap? • multiple users, one user with multiple roles, tasks, privacy and security, organizational strategies and policies.

• What makes people use multiple

(mobile)

devices?

• People want to have constant access to their tasks, contact list, calendar , and other data wherever they are. Desktop computers or Notebooks are not handy enough to be a permanent companion. Recently, mobile devices are also very popular as a tool to access internet services.

• Is multiplicity of devices a good thing or not? • I do not think, that the multiplicity itself is good or bad from the users point of view. What is bad is the current support for this multiplicity. The main focus of a user is (or should be) the data she or he is accessing and the tasks she or he will accomplish. Because of the inability of current systems, this multiplicity is recognized as bad.

• Do tasks and information move between the devices? • Again, I do think that the current limitations of the products available limits the ubiquity of information. Tasks and information should move between the devices as easily as the user is able to switch between them. So yes, I do think that tasks and information are moving between devices.

• What could help users to cross the boundaries between devices? • The user needs software solutions that take over the burden of synchronization. Whenever the user switches to a device the information has to be up to date and any modifications should be propagated without user interaction. Let the user think about

Questions for Panelists: Amy Karlson Workshop Theme: Personal information intersections: What happens when PIM spaces overlap? • multiple users, one user with multiple roles, tasks, privacy and security, organizational strategies and policies.

What makes people use multiple

(mobile)

devices?

People use the most convenient device that will satisfy the task at hand, taking into account portability, availability, startup time, and functionality

Is multiplicity of devices a good thing or not? • I would argue that multiple devices are a good thing wrt the above statement (e.g., convenience) devices but that today data is artificially segmented by the hardware, which creates problems for users. Ideally information spaces should be device agnostic (e.g., available from any device), but individuals will vary in how distinct they want their information spaces to be from one another, and that’s where the technology should held the user.

Do tasks and information move between the devices? • Absolutely tasks do, but the burden of crossing the barrier is largely put on the user today. Even email, which is arguably the most “successful” due to it’s fundamental client server model, is negatively impacted by multiple-device access as mobility injects new types of disruptions to task flow.

What could help users to cross the boundaries between devices? • Systems that capture richer task state (including context) and which share that state across all devices. • Allowing users to explicitly summon tasks and state that were abandoned at one device to another, as well as providing cues for task resumption at different devices. • Systems that support tasks at a finer granularity that allow users to make progress toward the completion of a task in short bursts of time and less capable devices. This relies on appropriate interfaces at the mobile device, and users being able to rehydrate the task and continue from any device.

Questions for Panelists – Jakob Larsen • Workshop Theme: Personal information intersections: What happens when PIM spaces overlap? • multiple users, one user with multiple roles, tasks, privacy and security, organizational strategies and policies.

• What makes people use multiple

(mobile)

devices?

• Probably multiple parameters play a role in determining the choice of device: task itself, size/complexity of task, urgency, device features and limitations, convenience, privacy/security, etc...

• Is multiplicity of devices a good thing or not? • With the current lack of integration and unification across devices it tends to separate into different information spaces (with some exceptions). Good/bad, information dealt with in separated spaces, but it may lead to task/information fragmentation and additional cognitive load.

• Do tasks and information move between the devices? • Device boundaries are generally hard to cross. Depends on information types. Some has decent support (e.g. email) and some hardly at all (e.g. bookmarks).

• What could help users to cross the boundaries between devices? • There is a set of research challenges to develop models for the necessary tool support, so enable users to cross device boundaries, both in terms of tasks and information • Providing contextual information may be one possible solution to facilitate management of personal information across device boundaries. Carrying task and/or