Context Aware

Strategy and Concepts

Version 2.4 – August 31, 2010

Key Value Propositions of Contextual UI:

• Discover new things, places, people, and events

• Connect to those I care about

• Optimize my device performance

• Assist in everyday tasks

Key Principles for the Solution: How We Provide This Experience

1. Secure privacy and establish trust

2. Ensure user control and provide visibility of preferences and status

3. Convey how the collected data is used to benefit the end user

4. Make accurate recommendations to the user

5. Be unobtrusive and avoid unnecessary interruptions

6. Become increasingly invisible over time

Conceptual Exploration: Filtering Experiences

• Where and how to incorporate Contextual Awareness in core apps

• Use context awareness to improve common experiences

• Avoid unnecessary interruptions to the user

• Make accurate and helpful recommendations that clearly benefit the user

What We've Explored

• Interactive and visual treatments for embedded content, prompts, or information

What Worked Well:

• Notifications bar to offer context-based suggestions

• Page turns that offer context-based recommendations

• Quick input requests that are a small commitment on the part of the user

• Opportunities for the user to contribute specific feedback based on immediate context

What We've Concluded:

• Where, when, and how is it appropriate to filter contextual awareness in the UI?

• Where the user can quickly and easily input information to build context awareness

• When the app is able to make accurate recommendations based on user preferences and usage patterns

• When context awareness input opportunities are available without being intrusive to the user

Core Design Principle:

Successful filtering will result in apps that make accurate recommendations based on user patterns and preferences without burdening or interrupting the user.

Centralized Repository:

What Models and Features Are Appropriate for a Stand-alone App

Create a consistent, centralized location for users to:

• Choose preferences to opt-in or opt-out of the contextual awareness experience

• View, create, maintain, and share smart rules

• Search and adopt community smart rules

• Visualize their status and view overall participation in context aware activities

What Worked Well:

• A landing page that serves as a "master control center"

• A community page that serves as a wiki for users to share their rules and rate others'

• Mastery screens with an overview of the user's progress, goals, and achievements

• Widgets with quick access to context-based functionality

What We've Concluded:

• How can a context-aware repository enhance the user's overall experience?

• A centralized location can ensure the user has an easy and efficient way to indicate sharing preferences and ensure the user feels in control of the device.

• Giving users control over sharing permissions establishes user trust in the device.

• Providing a visual display of participation in context awareness can be fun and entertaining for the user.

Core Design Principle:

The context-aware repository will establish user trust by providing users a centralized place to secure privacy, ensure control, and determine sharing preferences without being difficult or burdensome to the user.

Game-like Experiences:

Leverage game-like interactions to encourage user participation

• Make otherwise tedious tasks fun and rewarding

• Help bridge the reward gap between initial use and building true context awareness

• Avoid overwhelming the user with pop-ups or unnecessary interruptions

• Ensure that the visuals and tone of the UI reflect the brand

What We've Explored:

• Game frameworks and models

• Whimsical, game-like activities

Research on the Use of Agents, Avatars, and Bots:

• Users have a generally negative outlook at the utility of agents based on previous experience

• Users come into an interaction with preconceptions regarding agent utility

• Users do not need an actual animated figure to encourage the assignment of personality to the device

• Users treat technology using the same social rules they use with humans regardless of the presence of animated figures

• Specific behaviors include politeness and teamwork, as well as the establishment of a perceived reciprocal relationship

• Avatars lose appeal over time and are difficult to evaluate in usability testing

What Worked Well:

• Metaphors for device management activities

• Sandbox interaction styles for settings and user input

What We've Concluded:

• The following can be adopted from game principles because they align with our research and can be implemented in many ways:

• Making the interface engaging and fun can be motivating during tedious tasks.

• Game-like interactions (visual navigation, better feedback, etc.) can establish a bond between user and their device.

• Elements that encourage learning and exploration develop a recurring pattern of behavior.

• Need to avoid unnecessary interruptions and distractions from gratuitous animations or agents that evoke users' preconceived negative associations with avatars.

Core Design Principle:

A successful solution will add a layer of game-like elements that are fun and engaging without adding complexity to the experience.

How This All Fits Together:

Contextual awareness is an ecosystem that pervades the device and influences how a user interacts with it at various levels of experience.

• Users should always be in control and can turn on or off contextual awareness.

• Users discover and understand the power of contextual awareness through light-weight entry points integrated across the UI or as extensions of the core apps.

• With time, users can opt to utilize their device to its fullest potential by actively fine-tuning, managing, building, and sharing smart rules in the central repository.

• Users can filter, adopt, and contribute to community-generated smart rules.

The direct and indirect interactions between users and the context engine form a continuous feedback loop that grows and sustains the context-aware ecosystem.

Manage and Build a Context Awareness Hub:

Create a consistent, centralized location to manage and build smart rules:

• Users are able to choose to opt-in or opt-out of the contextual awareness experience.

• Give users the ability to view, create, maintain, and share smart rules.

• Users are able to search and share within a community.

• Users are able to visualize their status and view overall participation in context-aware activities.

• Users may also access and build scripts using input from across the device.

Questions to Be Answered:

How can we better understand the value of context awareness?

Trust:

• What level of trust do users have with the device initially?

• What aspects of context awareness can promote immediate trust?

• What would users change to feel more immediately trusting of the device?

• How do specific context awareness applications affect user trust in the device?

• How does experiential trust change over use?

Control:

• What level of control do users want over context awareness applications?

• What do users want done automatically?

• How do user preferences differ between social sharing and sharing personal information with the device only?