Calm Technology, Ambient Displays

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Calm Technology,Ambient Displays Informative
Art
Tobias Skog tobias_at_viktoria.se
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Overview of Lecture

• Introduction to Calm technology and trends in the
  HCI field in the mid 90s
• Examples of ambient peripheral displays
• Break
• Informative Art

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Major Computing Trends

• I The Mainframe Era
• II The Personal Computing Era
• The Internet and Distributed Computing
• III The Ubiquitous Computing Era
• Weiser Seely Brown (1996)
• The Coming Age of Calm Technology

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Calm Technology

• If computers are everywhere they better stay out
  of the way
• Calm technology engages both the center and the
  periphery of our attention, and in fact moves
  back and forth between the two

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3 Signs of Calm Technology

• Ability to move between center and periphery of
  attention
• Enhance peripheral reach
• Connection to the world or locatedness

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Inner Office Windows

• Gives calm awareness information both for
  people on the inside and outside
• People passing by - Meeting about to start?
• Someone waiting outside office - needs to talk to
  me?
• Light leaking into corridor - Someone working
  late?

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The Dangling String

• Originally called Livewire created at Xerox
  PARC by artist Natalie Jeremijenko
• A wire, attached to a motor, hangs from the
  ceiling and each data bit sent through the
  network makes the wire move

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Two HCI Trends in the 90s

• Awareness applications
• Peoples activity, Web traffic, etc
• Off the desktop-systems
• Away from the mouse keyboard

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AROMARønby Pedersen Sokoler, Roskilde
University (1997)

• Abstract representations as presence indicators
  to support mutual awareness

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Ambient DisplaysTangible Media Group, MIT Media
Lab (1998)

• Ambient \Ambient\, a Surrounding, encircling,
  encompassing and environing

Personal computing vs. Tangible computing
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ambientROOMTangible Media Group, MIT Media Lab
(1998)

• Architectural space as an interface between
  people and digital information

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ambientROOM Video
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Ambient FixturesTangible Media Group, MIT Media
Lab (1998-2000)

• The Water Lamp Pinwheels

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The Information Percolator Heiner, Hudson
Tanaka, HCII, CMU (1998)

• Bubble display gtgtgt Awareness application

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The Information Percolator Ctd.
Clock application
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The ChatterBox Redström et al, PLAY, Interactive
Institute (1999)

• Peripheral Text Display

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The Chatterbox ctd

• Movie

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Slow Technology Hallnäs Redström, PLAY,
Interactive Institute (2000-2002)

• The Lamp Foot The Fan House

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Berkeley Group for User Interface Research
The Weather Mobile
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Hancock Tower, Boston MA

• Weather Beacon
• Rhyme to memorize mapping
• Clear blue, clear view
• Flashing blue, clouds due
• Steady red, rain ahead
• Flashing red, snowstorm ahead
• (or today's Red Sox game is canceled)

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Ambient. www.ambientdevices.com

• Weather Forecast Beacon Ambient Orb

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Screen-based Displays

• Sometimes referred to as peripheral instead of
  ambient displays
• Advantage uses robust, off-the-shelf display
  technology that allows faster prototyping than
  custom-built displays

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Digital Family PortraitEveryday Computing Lab _at_
Georgia Tech

• Displays the wellbeing of a close (elderly)
  relative

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InfoCanvasInformation Interfaces Lab _at_ Georgia
Tech
User configurable peripheral display, showing
info like stock market, weather, traffic, etc.
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Break

• 15 minutes

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Informative Art
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Displays Everywhere

• In future ubiquitous computing environments, we
  will have access to a lot of different
  information
• But how can information be integrated into our
  everyday environment more smoothly?

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Wall Decorations

• Paintings and Posters are used to decorate our
  homes, offices and public places

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WebAware (1999)

• Dynamic Visualization of web site traffic

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WebAware on Display
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Informative Art

• Informative Art borrows the language of art to
  create decorative information displays
• A painting is updated dynamically to reflect
  some information source
• IA is designed to display in the everyday
  environment

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E-mail Mondrian

• Inspired by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian
  (1872-1944)
• Shows e-mail traffic information for a group of
  people
• Each square one person

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Exhibition at SIGGRAPH 2001
Four pieces of informative art exhibited during
one week
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The Weather Composition

• This piece again inspired by Dutch painter Piet
  Mondrian
• But it is in fact showing the weather in six
  different cities
• The data is dynamically updated from the Internet

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The Soup Clock

• This piece is inspired by Andy Warhols paintings
  of various packages - soup, washing powder, etc.
• But it is in fact a clock.

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The Stone Garden

• This piece was inspired by landscape artists such
  as Richard Long
• It is based on the last 30 days of earthquake data

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The Motion Painting

• This piece was inspired by abstract art like the
  one by Bridget Riley and Mark Rothko
• Uses a web cam to give a long-term impression of
  the activity at a place

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The IT-University
Gothenburg, Sweden 150 students, Semi-public
area Wall-mounted displays
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The Prototype

• Weather forecast, Mondrian style
• Current conditions four day forecast

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Feedback from Users

• Did it work?
• Enjoyable part of the surroundings
• Readability OK, some misinterpretations

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A visualization of Bus Traffic

• A requested information source by the students
• New web service by Västtrafik

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Preliminary Visualization
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Feedback from Students

• Three groups of students gave feedback on the
  preliminary visualization

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Final Visualization 1
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Final Visualization 2
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Final Visualization 3
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Informative Art
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A New Setting

• Visualization currently running at Volvo
  Technology

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Assignment

• Answer two questions about ambient and peripheral
  displays using the literature for this lecture.
• More info at
• www.viktoria.se/tobias/edu
• tobias_at_viktoria.se