Providing customisation guidelines of mobile phones for manufacturers

Customisation of mobile phones is a process of producing products according to individual needs on design, cost, and easiness of the phones. With the aim of identifying the most important features in customising mobile phones, 288 questionnaires were collected and analysed. The result showed that ‘text message’, ‘battery’, ‘contacts’, ‘software updates’, and ‘display size’ were highly required to customise. Among six factors (physical design, technical design, cost of entertainment, cost of information, cost of durability, easiness of use) obtained from a factor analysis, the most important reason for users to customise mobile phones was that they wanted to use a mobile phone easily. Cost of durability and cost of information were also important motivations for customisation of mobile phones. Finally, this research showed that gender and user experience were significant factors for customisation.     

SpinRadar: a spontaneous service provision middleware for place-aware social interactions

With the advancements of mobile phones and the integration of multiple communication interfaces, online social interaction between users is no longer restricted to a specific place with connectivity to the Internet but can happen anywhere and at any time. This has promoted the development of mobile social applications to enable opportunistic interactions with co-located users. One of the challenging problems in such interactions is to discover interaction opportunities with nearby users. Existing works focus on properties related to mobile users in order to find similar users in the surrounding area; these works depend on predefined logic such as conditional statements to recommend spontaneous social interaction opportunities. However, the social implications of the place in which the interaction is taking place are an important factor for recommendations, as those implications provide hints about the most plausible types of interactions among co-located users. In this work, we present a middleware called SpinRadar which is designed to support spontaneous interactions between co-located users by taking into account the semantics of a place, which we call ‘placeness.’ Our evaluation shows that the proposed scheme satisfies users much more than existing schemes.     

D-Checklist:一种老年人手机设计方法

老年人的数量和比例不断增加,设计适合老年人使用的手机以提高老年人的生活质量、改善老年人的生活状态具有重要的社会意义和经济意义。通过对使用上下文,即老年人用户的特点、老年人使用手机的特点及现有手机制造和软件设计技术的分析,找出影响老年人手机可用性的六个核心要素,针对每个要素提出相对应的设计要点,并以此为基础提出一种新的老年人手机设计方法:D-Checklist法。通过评估说明此方法可以有效提高所开发的老年人手机的可用性。     

Adoption of the Internet and WAP-enabled phones in Singapore

The Internet, and more recently mobile phones have seen tremendous growth over the past few years. This paper examines the adoption of the Internet and WAP-enabled mobile phones in Singapore. Specifically, we compare users of WAP-enabled mobile phones and non-WAP-enabled mobile phones in terms of profile of Internet users, Internet activities and issues relating to WAP-enabled mobile phones. The results indicate that short messaging system (SMS) and caller ID are popular functions for mobile phone users. Respondent also use the mobile phone for buying cinema/concert tickets and accessing personalised news. These results provide researchers and practitioners with some insights on the adoption of the Internet and WAP-enabled mobile phones. For researchers, such insights would be useful in understanding the adoption phenomenon, while for practitioners, such insights would provide some basis for adopting certain policies to promote adoption.     

Pico-ing into the future of mobile projection and contexts

Ten years ago, we were on the verge of having cameras built into our mobile phones, but knew very little about what to expect or how they would be used. Now we are faced with the same unknowns with mobile projector phones. This research seeks to explore how people will want to use such technology, how they will feel when using it, and what social effects we can expect to see. This paper describes our two-phase field investigation that uses a combination of methods to investigate how, when, and why mobile projections may be used. The first study used an experience sampling method to investigate responses to a range of different media types, and, for example, the choice of surfaces used in each case. The second study asked users to create video diary entries showing when, where, and why they would have wanted to project information. Together these studies provide complementary insights into the future use of mobile projector phones. Our results cover detailed responses to a range of media types from the first study, while the second identified which of the known mobile information needs were commonly recorded by participants. Both studies provide insights that may help shape the hardware, software, and interaction design of mobile projector phones as they become increasingly available.     

Context Awareness and Mobile Phones

This paper investigates some aspects of how context-awareness can support users of mobile phones, in particular the calling party. The use of mobile and stationary phones is discussed in relation to situational properties of a phone conversation, especially with regards to who might benefit from context-awareness in this context. An initial hypothesis is that mobile phone users communicate context information to each other (verbally) to a much higher degree than do stationary phone users. Mobile phone users could benefit much from context awareness technology, in particular when about to make a call, if they can receive context information regarding the person they are trying to reach prior to establishing the call. We argue that such technology should require low amounts of explicit user interaction, and could lead to less disrupting calls in inappropriate moments, as well as less frustration for the calling party when a call is not answered.     

Empowerment through seamfulness: smart phones in everyday life

In this paper, we describe research into use of multifunctional mobile phones by working adults and posit the device as a plausible realization of ubiquitous computing. We investigate how users actively adapt and adopt the different functions in smart phones to suit their needs and lifestyles. Through an interview and diary study, we discover how the smart phone is used in pragmatic and seamful ways, regardless of the interface of the specific phone selected or the particular features available. Users used phones in highly individual manners; mixed and adapted existing functions to meet their own priorities; added some functions and ignored others to create their own portfolio; and blended their use with the specifics of their everyday lives. While these data challenge some assumptions of human–computer interaction and ubiquitous computing, it also presents new research potential in terms of understanding how users take advantage of the multiple features in smart phone devices and how they utilize seamfulness in everyday smart phones practices.     

The Digital Divide Objectified in the Design: Use of the Mobile Telephone by Underprivileged Youth in Sri Lanka

Most discussions on the digital divide have predominantly focused on social disparities in the physical accessibility of information and communication technologies (ICT), and the proposed solutions are related to providing low cost access to the underprivileged. The mobile phone has been considered as a good solution due to its relatively low cost. This paper, based on an empirical study in Sri Lanka, demonstrates that even though the underprivileged population has adopted the mobile phone, most of the computer based communication facilities available in the phones are ‘inaccessible’ to such users due the objectification of broader social inequalities in the design of phones. In other words, the digital divide is objectified in the design.     

UX Curve: A method for evaluating long-term user experience

The goal of user experience design in industry is to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product. So far, user experience studies have mostly focused on short-term evaluations and consequently on aspects relating to the initial adoption of new product designs. Nevertheless, the relationship between the user and the product evolves over long periods of time and the relevance of prolonged use for market success has been recently highlighted. In this paper, we argue for the cost-effective elicitation of longitudinal user experience data. We propose a method called the “UX Curve” which aims at assisting users in retrospectively reporting how and why their experience with a product has changed over time. The usefulness of the UX Curve method was assessed in a qualitative study with 20 mobile phone users. In particular, we investigated how users’ specific memories of their experiences with their mobile phones guide their behavior and their willingness to recommend the product to others. The results suggest that the UX Curve method enables users and researchers to determine the quality of long-term user experience and the influences that improve user experience over time or cause it to deteriorate. The method provided rich qualitative data and we found that an improving trend of perceived attractiveness of mobile phones was related to user satisfaction and willingness to recommend their phone to friends. This highlights that sustaining perceived attractiveness can be a differentiating factor in the user acceptance of personal interactive products such as mobile phones. The study suggests that the proposed method can be used as a straightforward tool for understanding the reasons why user experience improves or worsens in long-term product use and how these reasons relate to customer loyalty.     

基于蓝牙技术用手机控制电脑的软件设计

利用手机控制电脑会给人们生活提供便利。本文主要讨论如何利用蓝牙技术在手机与电脑端建立连接,并让电脑对手机发来的指令数据做出响应操作,从而实现手机对电脑的控制。在此基础上,还讨论实现如何将电脑屏幕实时地显示在手机上,并对图像显示方式和按键响应模式做出分析与优化。     

Collecting and Sharing Location-based Content on Mobile Phones in a Zoo Visitor Experience

The augmentation of visitor experiences with location-based technologies has been available for some time. Through in-depth studies of users during these experiences the field is building a rich picture of user behaviour in relation to certain location-based technologies. However, little work has explored the use of mobile camera phones and 2D barcodes on situated signs and their properties as a way of delivering such augmented visitor experiences. In this paper we present a study of people engaged in such a location-based experience at London zoo in which they use mobile camera phones to read 2D barcodes on signs at the animal enclosures in order to access related content. Through the fieldwork we highlight the social and collaborative aspects of the experience and how particular characteristics of the mobile phone and barcode technology shape these behaviours. The paper also highlights some of the non-instrumental aspects of the location-based experience, in particular in relation to the importance of collecting location-based content. We explore the social aspects of collecting as well as certain competitive elements it introduces into people’s behaviour. This creates an interesting tension in that aspects of the application encourage cooperation and sharing among the visitors whereas others encourage competition. In the course of presenting the fieldwork, we explore this tension further.     

Cost effective data wiping methods for mobile phone

Thanks to the supply of smartphones, mobile phones have come to store increasingly more personal information of users. To protect users’ information, the information stored in mobile phones should not only be managed safety but also be deleted not to allow restoration. In the filesystems that have been applied to existing mobile phones, even when users have deleted information, data are not completely wiped from the storage. Therefore, the data can be easily recovered by using forensics tools. Considering that mobile phones are always exposed to the risk of robberies and loss, this situation can be misused for personal information spill. The present paper points out problems in the methods of data deleting from smartphones, proposes an efficient data deleting method considering mobile device environments with limitations in battery and hardware performance such as smartphones, and analyzes the efficiency of the techniques in relation to the types of filesystems and data formats.     

手机订单管理系统的设计与实现

随着互联网的逐步深入与应用,电子商务网站越来越多地出现在我们的身边,它直接作为一种先进的交易方式,被越来越多的人所接受。本系统分为前台与后台两部分,基本实现用户网上购买手机及管理员对订单管理的过程。     

Discovering Typed Communities in Mobile Social Networks

Mobile social networks,which consist of mobile users who communicate with each other using cell phones,are reflections of people’s interactions in social lives.Discovering typed communities(e.g.,family communities or corporate communities) in mobile social networks is a very promising problem.For example,it can help mobile operators to determine the target users for precision marketing.In this paper we propose discovering typed communities in mobile social networks by utilizing the labels of relationships between users.We use the user logs stored by mobile operators,including communication and user movement records,to collectively label all the relationships in a network,by employing an undirected probabilistic graphical model,i.e.,conditional random fields.Then we use two methods to discover typed communities based on the results of relationship labeling:one is simply retaining or cutting relationships according to their labels,and the other is using sophisticated weighted community detection algorithms.The experimental results show that our proposed framework performs well in terms of the accuracy of typed community detection in mobile social networks.     

Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration

Vibration offers many potential benefits for the use of mobile phones. In this paper, we propose a new method of rendering live football game on mobile phones using vibration. A mobile phone is “synchronized” with the ball in the real field. By holding the phone, users are able to experience dynamic movements of the ball, to know attacking directions and which team is leading the attack. The usability test of our system shows that vibrotactile display is suitable for rendering live football information on mobile phones by adopting designed coding schemes with a right training process.      

Mobile phones as medical devices in mental disorder treatment: an overview

Mental disorders can have a significant, negative impact on sufferers’ lives, as well as on their friends and family, healthcare systems and other parts of society. Approximately 25 % of all people in Europe and the USA experience a mental disorder at least once in their lifetime. Currently, monitoring mental disorders relies on subjective clinical self-reporting rating scales, which were developed more than 50 years ago. In this paper, we discuss how mobile phones can support the treatment of mental disorders by (1) implementing human–computer interfaces to support therapy and (2) collecting relevant data from patients’ daily lives to monitor the current state and development of their mental disorders. Concerning the first point, we review various systems that utilize mobile phones for the treatment of mental disorders. We also evaluate how their core design features and dimensions can be applied in other, similar systems. Concerning the second point, we highlight the feasibility of using mobile phones to collect comprehensive data including voice data, motion and location information. Data mining methods are also reviewed and discussed. Based on the presented studies, we summarize advantages and drawbacks of the most promising mobile phone technologies for detecting mood disorders like depression or bipolar disorder. Finally, we discuss practical implementation details, legal issues and business models for the introduction of mobile phones as medical devices.     

Ergonomics To Go: Designing The Mobile Workspace

The workplace is becoming increasingly mobile, as more and more employees regularly work from their home office, spend a lot of time travelling, work on-site at their customers’ place, and use laptops and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets instead of classical desktop computers. However, while research and checklists on how to create an ergonomic office are readily available, less is known about how the ‘mobile workplace’ should be designed to reduce strains and stress resulting from unfavourable workplace conditions, non-ergonomic equipment or devices, extensive travelling, or work-home interference. In this paper we present the results of an empirical study on the ergonomic requirements of mobile workers. Based on this, we present the ‘Ergonomics Coach’, a prototype of an online coaching application with helpful information and exercises adapted to the mobile workplace.     

基于Symbian的情景数据存储管理

随着智能手机所集成的传感器数量和用户对手机依赖性的增加,应用程序通过手机所能采集的关于用户行为或使用场景相关的数据越来越多。如何充分利用从手机端搜集的情景数据集,从中挖掘或分析出用户的习惯,从而为用户提供更好的服务,得到了相关研究人员和程序开发者的重视,请求这些数据的相关应用程序数目也不断增加。针对情景数据的存储没有一个统一的管理方案的问题,此处提出了一种统一的、基于Symbian S60 V5平台的情景处理框架的情景数据存储方案。它不但能够为应用程序提供统一的数据存储方案,提高了软件的模块化,同时能够有效地解决同一类数据被多个应用程序存储造成的数据冗余问题。     

The action of looking at a mobile phone display as nonverbal behavior/communication: A theoretical perspective

This study investigates the now-common action of looking at a mobile phone display, thereby offering insight into the present communication situation in an era in which the use of high-performance mobile phones has become ubiquitous. In this study, the action of looking at a mobile phone display is considered nonverbal behavior/communication. This study applies a basic, general model to elucidate the present situation of face-to-face communication in light of the increasing prevalence of social interaction via mobile phone use. The results derived from the model include mobile phone users’ increasing social power and an accumulation of potential discontent in relation to different interpretations. This study concludes that in an era of high-performance mobile phones, the social context in face-to-face communication can be influenced by the act of looking at a mobile phone display.     

‘Podracing’: experimenting with mobile TV content consumption and delivery methods

Recently, mobile TV has been launched in several countries. While mobile TV integrates television contents into mobile phones, the most personal of communication devices, it becomes interesting to know how this feature will be used throughout the day and in varying contexts of everyday life. This paper presents empirical results on the use of mobile TV with different delivery mechanisms and both quantitative and qualitative results on how end-users prefer to use mobile TV contents in different situations. The data is based on ongoing empirical research in Finland in 2006 and 2007. The mobile TV services under study included both news and entertainment contents, and were tested in 3G, DVB-H and Wi-Fi networks using different delivery paradigms: broadcast, on-demand and download. To explore the use of different delivery methods and content consumption, we have developed a mobile TV service protoype, called Podracing. The analysis shows that users appreciated up-to-date information and information-rich media forms and contents especially for mobile news delivery. There was high demand for only the latest news on mobiles. The real-time property was considered important. Most of the users looked at the headlines or followed the news several times a day – much more often than the traditional TV and news prime times would allow.