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Supporting the unremarkable:experiences with the obje Display Mirror

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Abstract

Many believe that ubiquitous computing will succeed when it has faded into the background of everyday life and work—that is, when it has become mundane. This paper examines the potential for technology to enhance users’ experience of their environments through the improvement of the unremarkable activities that comprise everyday experience. Based on a year-long longitudinal study, we describe how we designed, deployed, and evaluated technology to support and enhance a common but unremarkable practice: the act of connecting a portable computer to a shared display (e.g., VGA projector). We found that new capabilities of our technology introduced subtle but significant changes in the practices surrounding the sharing of information in meetings. However, we also met with substantial challenges in terms of deployment, adoption, and evaluation. We analyze and discuss these challenges in depth, in order to inform the design of future mundane, pervasive applications.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the NIST Advanced Technology Program Award #3H3052. Kurt Partridge, Bo Begole, and Ame Elliott provided helpful comments on drafts of this paper. Beki Grinter provided helpful guidance during the formative stages of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA

    Mark W. Newman, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Jana Z. Sedivy & Trevor F. Smith

  2. GVU Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, 85 5th Street NW, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    W. Keith Edwards

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  1. Mark W. Newman
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  2. Nicolas Ducheneaut
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  3. W. Keith Edwards
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  4. Jana Z. Sedivy
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  5. Trevor F. Smith
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark W. Newman.

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Newman, M.W., Ducheneaut, N., Edwards, W.K. et al. Supporting the unremarkable:experiences with the obje Display Mirror. Pers Ubiquit Comput 11, 523–536 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-006-0117-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-006-0117-0

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