Mobile Design Workshop

Mobile and Ubiquitous User Experience:
Design Principles and Best Practices

In conjunction with the 9th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing

Sept 16 2007. Innsbruck, Austria.

Organizers:
Mirjana Spasojevic, Nokia Research Center
Rachel Hinman, Adaptive Path
Mor Naaman, Yahoo! Research Berkeley
Virpi Roto, Nokia Research Center
Will Dzierson, Google

Deadline extension: June 10

Overview
Over the past decade there has been significant development in the domain of mobile and ubiquitous devices, services and applications. From the initial ideas and prototypes in the late 90s, things have moved to pilot deployments and finally commercial endeavors. Yet only a few early ideas that have been put to test have reached univocal successes and broad adoption, while many others have languished around and have eventually been abandoned. In this workshop we would like to provide a forum for discussion of design principles and best practices for mobile and ubiquitous user experience, especially focusing on applications and services. We would like to share successes, failures and lessons learned and, as a community, suggest new venues for research.
Full workshop proposal is here.

Introduction
The last decade has witnessed significant developments of mobile and ubiquitous devices, services and applications. From the initial ideas and prototypes in the mobile domain, things have moved to pilot deployments and finally commercial endeavors. Some early ideas that have been put to test, such as text messaging or payments using RFID cards have reached success and broader adoption. Other technologies, such as invocation of services using QR or Semacodes have enjoyed considerable success in some markets, but missed the mark in others (e.g. Cue Cat in the North American market). In this workshop we would like to provide a forum for discussion of mobile and ubiquitous user experience, especially focusing on the applications and services. What are the important elements of this unique experience? What makes certain applications and services sticky? What strategies lead to broader adoption? We would like to share successes, failures and lessons learned. As a community, we would like to move towards the formulation of design principles and best practices for mobile and ubiquitous use experience.

Workshop Themes
The goal of this workshop is to provide a platform for sharing and discussion of the lessons learned in mobile and ubiquitous design for applications and services. Our past experiences and research suggest several themes and principles that are important in building these applications and services, especially when it comes to mobile internet access:

• Think uniquely mobile, not a mini PC.

• Think always with you, not just on the go.

• Think building and reinforcing common ground and identity.

• Think access to what is essential, not just browsing.

• Consider what Emerging Markets have to teach us about the fundamentals of being mobile.

Workshop Format

In this workshop we aim to foster a discussions among a diverse group of researches and practitioners. The workshop is design to be highly interactive and cover the following aspects:

• Short presentations: introductory presentations will be given by all attendees at the beginning of the day.

• In order to stimulate thinking from the users' point of view, we will provide several real user posters and materials such as video clips from recent ethnographic studies. The attendees will be divided into brainstorming groups to discuss potential ideas and propose design solutions. The design will be carried out using low fidelity methods (pen and paper).

• Open format discussion. The attendees will have an opportunity to propose topics and hold discussions in smaller groups. As an alternative, we may select some specific questions and hold a panel session.

• Joint discussion. At the end of the day all participants will take part in the joint discussion with the goal of defining several most important research topics and questions for future study.

• Workshop workspace: in order to capture questions, comments and reflections, as well as to stimulate discussion before an after the workshop, a joint workshop wiki or blog will be set up for all attendees.

The number of participants will be limited to 25 people, selected based on their submission and reviewed by the organizers. Participants are asked to submit a position paper describing their interest and experience in this field (up to 6 pages in the workshop publication format). The organizing committee will select participants based on these extended abstracts. Please send submissions to Mirjana Spasojevic ( mirjana dot spasojevic at nokia dot com).

Deadline: June 10, 2007 (new deadline!)
Announcement of acceptance: July 1, 2007