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Abstract : |
Mobile communication and information technologies have been developing in recent years at an explosive rate, and are presenting exciting possibilities for people to communicate and exchange information regardless of their geographic location. And yet paradoxically, few evaluations of such systems in actual use have been done. Without a deep understanding of how users adapt to IT, technology development proceeds in the dark, with respect to human-computer interaction issues. Our goal is to understand mobile IT usage, in order to inform the design of mobile systems, and to study social impacts of the technology. Studying mobile IT usage involves two separate aspects: 1) to understand the usage of mobile IT in settings outside the laboratory, which enables us to understand issues such as adoption patterns, problems created by the technology, innovative solutions, and emerging behavioral or work patterns, and 2) to understand person mobility in different settings. Although a variety of methods exist for investigating technology use, currently, as we will argue below, none are satisfactory for understanding the complexity of mobile technology use in in vivo settings. In our research program, we are experimenting with wearable computers as a tool in evaluating technology use. We will first briefly discuss several often-used methodologies and explain why they are not sufficient or appropriate for achieving a thorough understanding of mobile IT., |
