Ambient Displays That Don't Distract
by David Pescovitz
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A
screenshot from the NASDAQ peripheral display that projects
stock quotes on a wall in Soda Hall, home to the Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.
Courtesy
the researchers
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The science-fiction
vision of ubiquitous computing is becoming a reality. Tiny sensors,
embedded computers, and wireless networks are transforming our world
into a vast and rich database that can be accessed from myriad digital
devices. The problem is that, no matter how many computers surround
us, we each only have one set of eyes and ears to deal with the
data they display.
"As computers move off the desktop, they no longer can be the focus
of our attention," says professor Jennifer Mankoff of the Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Center for
Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).
That's the motivation behind peripheral displays — from LEDs
that represent bus timetables to a floor lamp that slowly dims as
dusk nears — that output valuable information on "the periphery
of a user's attention."
To facilitate the creation of novel peripheral displays, Mankoff's
group built the Peripheral Display Toolkit, a software framework
for programming the devices. Drawing from cognitive science, Mankoff,
professor Anind K. Dey — who is also a research scientist at
the Intel Research at Berkeley Laboratory — and students Tara
Matthews, Tye Rattenbury, and Scott Carter encapsulated in the toolkit
the subtle yet essential components to build a display that requires
minimal attention most of the time, but notifies the user when important
data arrives.
Jennifer
Mankoff with her dog Demi, who was intended to become a
companion for the disabled but ended up as Mankoff's pet
instead.
Bonnie
Powell photo
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As a case study,
the researchers designed a bus LED display with rows of bulbs that
switch on in sequence as buses on various lines move closer to specified
stops. When a bus is six minutes away, the LEDs flash to grab the
user's attention. Another display, a variation of a stock and news
ticker, employs multicolor flashing text to alert the user. For
instance, the word "Iraq" in a headline or a dramatic change in
the price of Intel's stock causes the scrolling text to flash between
red and black.
Once the peripheral displays are built, though, they still must
go through their paces. For example, the information the display
provides must be "just enough" to be useful and relevant. Furthermore,
the display should call attention to itself only when the data demand
it, not because the device clashes with its intended environment.
These
kinds of rules, or heuristics, for evaluating peripheral display
design were the basis for a paper Mankoff and Dey — with students
Gary Hsieh, Julie Kients, Scott Lederer, and Morgan Ames —
presented at a recent conference on human-computer interaction.
In
this screen from the Ripples Peripheral Audio Display prototype,
a voice is seen coming from the vicinity of a desk on the
right side of the room. The size and color of the rings
represent volume.
Courtesy
the researchers
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"Ubiquitous computing
means there are many different kinds of inputs and outputs that
aren't necessarily task-oriented like our desktop activities," Mankoff
says. "Our traditional techniques for building and evaluating new
devices break down, so we have to develop new assessment techniques."
The newest
peripheral display ties directly to Mankoff's other main research
thrust — the development of more effective assistive technology
for disabled people. Designed by Mankoff, professor James A. Landay
and graduate student F. Wai-ling Ho-Ching, the aim of the peripheral
sound display is to provide awareness of environmental audio to
deaf individuals.
"This isn't about spoken words, but rather the ambient audio that
we all monitor constantly," Mankoff says. "All the time, we hear
people talking even when we don't know what they're saying, phones
ringing, buses outside the window."
To translate the din of daily life into something suitable for display,
the researchers designed two pieces of software. The first, a spectrograph,
graphically depicts the pitch and amplitude, or volume, of a sound.
The second more successful Positional Ripples Display
provides a visual representation of a sound's amplitude and spatial
location. The team mapped constant sounds, such as the hum of a
conversation, to a slow steady animation; while a sudden ringing
phone, for instance, causes visual elements to flash all over the
screen.
The results of the group's pilot and field studies were promising,
Mankoff says, and more are planned for this summer. One participant,
she recalls, reported that using the system was "like learning to
hear again after 30 years."
Jen Mankoff's Home Page
IO Projects in the Group for User Interface Research
Anind Dey's Home Page
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS)
Lab Notes is published online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking
research underway today at the College of Engineering that will dramatically change our lives tomorrow.
Editor, Director of Public Affairs: Teresa Moore
Writer, Researcher: David Pescovitz
Designer: Robyn Altman
Subscribe or send comments to the Engineering Public Affairs Office: lab-notes@coe.berkeley.edu.
© 2003 UC Regents.
Updated 5/1/03.
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