Tutorial and Workshops

T1: "Visual and Interaction Design for 3G Mobile Phone Interfaces" (tutorial)

W1: "HCI in Mobile Guides"

W2: "Physical Interaction (PI03) – Workshop on Real World User Interfaces"

W3: "Mobile and Ubiquitous Information Access"

W4: "Generic User Interface Elements for Mobile Terminals and Services"

W5: "HCI design aspects for applications of m-commerce"

Tutorial

T1: "Visual and Interaction Design for 3G Mobile Phone Interfaces"

Introduction and motivation

If you know how to use the empowering new mobile features such as colour, complex graphics and animation, you can design attractive, usable and targeted graphic user interfaces for mobile phones. Although the screens of today enable us to use these features to create designs and products based on peoples needs, interests and cultural values we see a slow progress in this area. A mobile phone’s content and GUI design for a stressed out middle-aged businessman is often the very same as the one offered to a teenage skate-punk.

When manufacturers talk about phone design, they most often refer to the design of the hardware. GUI design is seldom considered when marketing a new phone, which is surprising since the GUI is a big part of the experience of the phone and thus is a vital part of the relationship between a brand and its user.

Learning Objectives

This tutorial teaches you, through lecturing and fun break-out sessions, why a focus on attractive and usable GUIs is important and how to design them. The tutorial starts with a crash course in User Centred Design where we answer questions such as; What exactly is user centred design, why is it important and what kind of values can it add to both users and manufacturers? We will also show the impact a user centric design process can have on a Brand’s ability to build strong relationships, towards consumers and other types of users.

Then the tutorial moves on with an introduction to cultural aspects and mobile phone usage – how are needs, values and motives different between and within countries and continents. We will give examples of how to structure and design information for different user modes / profiles.

You will also learn how to design efficient menus and navigation, the importance of semiotics: ensuring icons, labels and headlines help users identify what they are looking for, concept design; how to make widgets, fonts, colours and shapes come together into a clear and visually pleasing interface, and finally how to balance and use animated graphical elements.

The tutorial will also include case studies in order to show and discuss how GUIs for the same phone model can look different when targeted towards different user modes / profiles.

Intended audience

The tutorial is suited for interaction designers, visual designers, usability specialists, developers, marketing directors, decision makers or any one with an interest in mobile phone interfaces. The tutorial does not require any technical knowledge and as such anyone with a basic understanding of the features and functions of general usage of mobile phones can attend.

About the speakers

Anders Norman

Anders is a Strategist and Interaction Designer at co-founded Ocean Observations where his latest work is a pervasive dating show concept running on wired and wireless Internet and TV. Anders has a vast experience of delivering tutorials including courses at Bergh’s School of Communication in Stockholm and speeches for Mobile Youth Seminars in London SIDA and Mobile Commerce World Scandinavia.

Sofia Svanteson

Sofia is an Interaction Designer and since the founding of Ocean Observations she has been working as an Interaction Designer, responsible for user research and testing, concept development and interaction design on a graphic user interface project of a future mobile phone for Samsung Electronics Ltd.

Sofia has been speaking at seminars and conferences in the USA, Japan and Sweden and has been lecturing at Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm and Parson School of Design in New York.

Jesper Wiking

Jesper is a Visual Designer and founder of Ocean Observations. During the last year he has been the creative coordinator of a 3G graphic user interface project for Samsung Electronics Ltd, developing concepts and visual designs.

Jesper is also a founding member of the Steve Boston Group, a graphic design forum intended for the exchange and analysis of creative ideas.

Workshops

W1: "HCI in Mobile Guides"

Organizers:

• Barbara Schmidt-Belz, Fraunhofer FIT, Germany
• Keith Cheverst, Lancaster University, UK
• Eija Kaasinen, VTT Information Technology, Finland
• Fabian Hermann, Fraunhofer IAO, Germany
• Elke-Maria Melchior, ACIT, Germany
• Stefan Poslad, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Submission deadline: 30 May 2003 Extended to 13 June

This workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners who develop and evaluate mobile guides, i.e. systems to guide a user who is moving in a physical environment by giving directions and supplying relevant information and services, accessible on mobile devices. Application examples of mobile guides include: mobile tourism services, museum/exhibition guides, facility management, group meeting assistance. The focus of this workshop is on HCI issues relating to the design and use of mobile guides.

Topics relevant for this workshop are, for instance,

• access to tourist support, e-content and e-business via mobile devices
• techniques to facilitate access to heterogeneous, distributed services
• navigation support and visualization of the spatial environment
• accessibility of mobile guides
• context awareness, location awareness and social awareness
• social navigation through anonymous recommendations etc.
• personalization of services
• user validation of mobile guides
• novel infrastructures, such as agent-based technology
• fault tolerance, trustworthiness, and security
• information retrieval and display whilst faced with changing infrastructure conditions

Following review by the program committee, accepted papers will be presented and discussed at the workshop. Aspects of human-computer interaction are to be addressed explicitly, empirical studies are especially welcome.

For details and Call for Papers see http://www.mguides.info.

W2: "Physical Interaction (PI03) – Workshop on Real World User Interfaces"

Organizers:

• Albrecht Schmidt, Lancaster University, UK
• Steve Benford, Nottingham University, UK
• Andreas Butz, Universitdt des Saarlandes, Germany

Submission deadline: June 10, 2003

Mobility inevitably moves computing and interaction into real world. Exploiting the physicality of the environment as means for interaction brings opportunities but also creates new challenges.

Physical user interfaces facilitate new ways of human-computer interaction. The real world becomes the user interface. Interaction occurs by manipulating the physical world. By moving interaction from the screen into the physicality of the real world the design space is extended allowing new and richer forms of interaction.

The workshop is concerned with how physical user interfaces can replace, enhance, and complement traditional WIMP based interaction.

• physical user interfaces for acquiring information (input)
• physical user interfaces for providing information (output)
• experience of creating everyday objects that become user interfaces
• sensing technologies for physical and mobile user interfaces
• activators for physical and mobile user interfaces
• models for off-screen real world interaction
• software models and frameworks for physical user interfaces
• experience reports on building, using, and deploying physical user interfaces
• co-existence of physical and screen based interfaces
• design guidelines for physical interaction
• evaluation of physical user interface
• specific issues of physical user interfaces in mobile settings

Contact and further Information:

Workshop web page: http://www.medien.informatik.uni-muenchen.de/en/events/pi03/
Albrecht Schmidt Albrecht.Schmidt@acm.org

W3: "Mobile and Ubiquitous Information Access"

Organizers:

• Fabio Crestani, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
• Mark Dunlop, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
• Stefano Mizzaro, University of Udine

Submission deadline: June 10, 2003 Extended to June 16, 2003

The ongoing migration of computing and information access from the desktop and telephone to mobile computing devices such as PDAs, tablet PCs, and next generation (G3) phones poses critical challenges for research in information access and, in particular, for Information Retrieval (IR).

The mobile devices offer limited screen size and no keyboard or mouse, making complex graphical interfaces cumbersome. The change in information access devices is also reflected by a radical change in IR user groups and tasks. These devices will be used in situations involving different physical and social environments and tasks, they will need to allow users to interact wherever he/she is and using whichever mode or combination of modes are most appropriate given the situation, their preferences, and the task at hand. Unlike traditional library or office settings, users of mobile IR devices will, typically, be subject to much higher levels of interruption and task switching. Very different interface designs are needed.

The workshop aims to be a forum for the presentation of current research and exchange of experiences into technological and usability aspects of mobile information access.

W4: "Generic User Interface Elements for Mobile Terminals and Services"

Organizers:

• Matthias Schneider-Hufschmidt, Siemens
• Martin Bocker, Siemens
• Bruno von Niman, Ericsson

Over half a million new subscribers sign up each day for mobile communication services, in addition to the one billion users using their phones more and more frequently and extensively. Converging fixed and mobile information and communication technologies are becoming widespread in our society, from e-voting to e-shopping, offering enormous potentials for improving life. An effective e-society relies on the assumption that all users are provided access at a minimum level, a challenge for network operators, device manufacturers and service providers.

An industry-lead group of experts at ETSI Human Factors (HF) have initiated and started a project, run by Specialist Task Force 231 (STF231), aimed at identifying possible areas for harmonization and standardization of generic user interface elements for mobile devices and services. The project will result in a number of standardization proposals.

This workshop is the first official presentation and feedback solicitation, to increase the understanding for and benefits of such an approach, preparing ground for possible implementations. Our major goals are to:

1. Present STF231 findings and work results to a broader audience and
2. Solicit feedback with focus on additional areas apt for harmonization or standardisation.

For more information and Call for papers, see http://portal.etsi.org/STFs/HF/STF231.asp.

W5: "HCI design aspects for applications of m-commerce"

Organizers:

• Anxo Cereijo Roibas, University of Brighton, UK
• Stefania Marcoli, H3G
• Luigi Centenaro, Ericsson
• Lucia Terrenghi, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology

Submission deadline: June 10, 2003 Extended to June 18, 2003 .

The workshop aims to explore and analyse the main features in the design of scenarios of mobile commerce for the incoming 3G mobile communication technologies. M-commerce is one of the most challenging issues for the incoming 3G communications technology. One of the main problems to the diffusion of m-commerce in Europe was the applications' lack of usability. Furthermore there are other m-commerce related aspects as micro-payments, wireless authentication for proximity transactions, interactive-ads for mobile devices etc that deserve special attention by HCI designers.

It is designed as a one-day practical activity with relevant theoretical discussion, ending with a poster design session. After the presentations and group discussion, participants will be invited to work around a particular concept for mobile-commerce (book buying, cinema booking, etc.) hypothesising a plausible scenario of use for these services or applications. They'll be also asked to design the most innovative/relevant interaction aspects of the proposed applications. Each team will be asked to summarize its findings in a poster presentation.

The workshop is intended for practitioners working in the mobile industry (telecoms, device manufacturers, service providers, etc.) and for HF academics and students with interests in human computer interaction and mobile commerce. Participants will be asked to submit a brief position paper of max 4 A4 pages. Participants will be selected on the basis of their interest in and familiarity with the topic.

For more information and Call for Papers, see http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/anxo/workshopmhci03.htm.