Richard H. R. Harper

Microsoft · Socio-Digital Systems Group

‘HCI in the wild’ was meant to be a call to get HCI investigations out of the lab into the mêlée of real life. This is of course a commendable suggestion, though begs questions about what kinds of methods and topics are suited for exploring in this mêlée as against in the lab. Claims by some experimentalists that they seek ecological validity in la...

Digital technologies are likely to be appropriated by the homeless just as they are by other segments of society. However, these appropriations will reflect the particularities of their circumstances. What are these appropriations? Are they beneficial or effective? Can Skype, as a case in point, assuage the social disconnection that must be, for ma...

This paper identifies salient properties of how talk about video communication is organised interactionally, and how this interaction invokes an implied order of behaviour that is treated as ‘typical’ and ‘accountably representative’ of video communication. This invoked order will be called an interrogative gaze. This is an implied orientation to a...

Technological support for augmenting the relationship that people establish with remote places has been studied fairly little as the primary focus in telepresence studies is the connection between people. This paper addresses the design challenge for supporting "active place presence" at home. A prototype, Hole in Space, was created to explore the...

This paper reports on how asynchronous mobile video messaging presents users with a challenge to doing 'being ordinary'. 53 participants from three countries were recruited to try Skype Qik at launch for two weeks. Some participants embraced Skype Qik as a gift economy, emphasizing a special relationship enacted through crafted self-presentation. H...

The term “conceptual designing” refers to an activity that various practitioners already undertake, but for which we lack a clear definition. This article provides that definition and uses an example of a design concept called “Manhattan” to present how exactly this type of process happens. We define conceptual designing as a constructive framing a...

Social software has become one of the most prominent means for communication. Context is essential for managing privacy and guiding communication. In social software, context can be ambiguous due to the overload of data and the mix of various audiences. Such ambiguity may result in privacy issues. To overcome context and privacy issues, we propose...

The proliferation of computation in our everyday environment enables new types of interaction and communication devices. Understanding the dialogue between users and such technology is crucial to the success of future urban computing deployments. We investigate human behaviour in public spaces using a public photography service deployed on interact...

In this position paper we outline the opportunities and challenges of pure asynchronous video messaging as an everyday utility. We recruited 53 users to try Skype Qik 'in the wild' for two weeks from its launch in October 2014. We found users orienting to an organizational principle that we term 'Me For You', a self-conscious yet creative orientati...

This study investigates the organization of interaction through comments on the social networking site Facebook. Facebook offers a range of affordances that allow communication between users. These include written language in various settings (messaging, commenting, posting), as well as a range of non-verbal resources, such as uploading photos, sha...

AimSoftware use is ubiquitous in the species distribution modelling (SDM) domain; nearly every scientist working on SDM either uses or develops specialist SDM software; however, little is formally known about the prevalence or preference of one software over another. We seek to provide, for the first time, a ‘snapshot’ of SDM users, the methods the...

Design research and the literature on sociomateriality emerge out of different academic traditions but share a common interest in the material. A sociomaterial perspective allows us to account for the complex ways people mingle and mangle information systems of all sorts into their social endeavors to accomplish organizational tasks. But, how do we...

Methods and apparatus for displaying and interacting with messages are described. Messages are displayed using one of a number of different visualization schemes provided. A user can interact with messages or change the selected visualization scheme using gestures and the mapping of gestures to particular actions is different for different visualiz...

Natural User Interfaces (NUI) offer rich ways for interacting with the digital world that make innovative use of existing human capabilities. They include and often combine different input modalities such as voice, gesture, eye gaze, body interactions, touch and touchless interactions. However much of the focus of NUI research and development has b...

A data store including a file location attribute is described. In an embodiment, the location attribute for a data element, such as a file or database record, is stored with the bytes of data and records the geographic location of the data element. Writing to this attribute is limited to a single trusted entity, such as an operating system, to ensu...

In this paper, we present a study of WhatsApp, an instant messaging smartphone application. Through our interviews with participants, we develop anthopologist Tim Ingold's notion of dwelling, and discuss how use of WhatsApp is constitutive of a felt-life of being together with those close by. We focus on the relationship "doings" in WhatsApp and ho...

Planning a wedding is arguably one of the most complicated collaborative tasks people ever undertake. Despite the commonplace use of technologies in "wedding work," little research has looked at this from an HCI perspective. Based on an interview study, we illustrate how technology is used to deliver the sought-after fantasy and a practical, yet en...

We are sketching here a research to investigate and assess the social impact of rich and mobile media (video, media spaces, virtual, mixed, augmented reality, mobile, etc.). The objective is to explore the way rich and mobile media are socially shaped in domestic settings, effects on co-proximate and remote forms of collaboration in work environmen...

Information retrieval using time is described. In an embodiment a web-crawler creates time objects which are composites of content of different media types obtained from potentially different sources and, for example, are about the same date or date range. For example, a time object may comprise an image and a piece of text about an event in 1977....

Information exploration is described. For example, a user provides gathering terms to an information exploration system which uses those terms to generate many composite items formed from content of different media types obtained from a web search engine. For example, the composite items are displayed simultaneously on a user interface and provide...

"Blind trust" is dangerous when choosing software to support research.

Web-based technologies are often built to capitalize on the flexibility and fluidity that is supported by the internet, with the value of 'access anywhere' underpinning a blurring of boundaries across home and work. Yet the home is well known in HCI to have a unique set of qualities that can use-fully be drawn upon when designing to support domesti...

Norman's critique is indicative of the issue that while using the word natural might have become natural, it is coming at a cost. In other words, precisely because the notion of naturalness has become so commonplace in the scientific lexicon of HCI, so it is becoming increasingly important, it seems that there is a critical examination of the conce...

For over 40 years the notion of the file, as devised by pioneers in the field of computing, has been the subject of much contention. Some have wanted to abandon the term altogether on the grounds that metaphors about files can confuse users and designers alike. More recently, the emergence of the 'cloud' has led some to suggest that the term is sim...

As the Kinect sensor is being extended from gaming to other applications and contexts, we critically examine what is the nature of the experience garnered through its current use in gaming in the home setting. Through an exploratory study of family experiences with Kinect in gaming, we discuss the character of the experience as one that entails use...

The organizational and social aspects of software engineering (SE) are now increasingly well investigated. This paper proposes that there are a number of approaches taken in research that can be distinguished not by their method or topic but by the different views they construct of the human agent acting in SE. These views have implications for the...

A key theme in mobile communications research is the idea that people are suffering from communications overload. This essay remarks on what that term might mean and how it ought to be addressed when viewed from the perspective of mobile phone research. It will argue that its use in everyday life is rich and complex, and that this use ought to be a...

This article addresses the emergence of networked narration found in Facebook updates. Drawing on anthropological approaches to co-tellership (Ochs & Capps, 2001), we trace how storyworlds are co-constructed by multiple narrators via the communicative affordances which have developed in the Facebook status update: namely, the practices of commentin...

Material artifacts are passed down as a way of sustaining relationships and family history. However, new issues are emerging as families are increasingly left with the digital remains of their loved ones. We designed three devices to investigate how digital materials might be passed down, lived with and inherited in the future. We conducted in-home...

People are amassing larger and more diverse collections of digital things. The emergence of Cloud computing has enabled people to move their personal files to online places, and create new digital things through online services. However, little is known about how this shift might shape people's orientations toward their digital things. To investiga...

This paper presents findings from a field study of 24 individuals who kept diaries of their web use, across device and location, for a period of four days. Our focus was on how the web was used for non-work purposes, with a view to understanding how this is intertwined with everyday life. While our initial aim was to update existing frameworks of '...

Photographic mementos are important signifiers of our personal memories. Rather than simply passive representations of memories to “preserve” the past, these photos are actively displayed and consumed in the context of everyday behavior and social practices. Within the context of these settings, these mementos are invoked in particular ways to mobi...

We present findings from the deployment of a mobile application, Take and Give, which allows users to place image files in a virtual folder or 'Pocket' on a mobile phone. This content can be viewed by a set of 'Buddies', who can, if they wish, attempt to take ownership of a file for themselves, following which they can keep it, delete it, or place...

One-size-fits-all solutions have not worked well in storage systems. This is true in the enterprise where noSQL, Map-Reduce and column-stores have added value to traditional database workloads. This is also true outside the enterprise. A recent paper [7] illustrated that even the single-desktop store is a rich mixture of file systems, databases and...

Purpose — We assert that researchers developing new web interaction tools should consider an array of user motives beyond query-based information retrieval. This chapter reports on two probes used to investigate user activities that go beyond search as traditionally conceived. Design/methodology — This chapter reviews research on user experiences w...

What and who a family is, is continually changing. Family is a place, an ever changing set of social relationships, an evolving archive of precious artefacts and the actions collectively unfolding that bring all of these elements into meaningful cohesion. Over space and time familial structure shifts; it expands, contracts, solidifies and dissolves...

In this paper we investigate the media needs of low-income mobile users in a South African township. We develop and deploy a system that allows users to download media at no costs to themselves, in order to probe future media requirements for similar user groups. We discover that not only are the community interested in developmental information, b...

Serendipity is an engaging, deeply personal and even magical experience to some. While serendipity has been noted to arise during people's interactions with digital photos, we have yet to understand how this occurs or how it could be supported during-and-through the use of technology. Inspired by findings about serendipity arising from people's shu...

With emerging opportunities for using Brain-Computer Interaction (BCI) in gaming applications, there is a need to understand the opportunities and constraints of this interaction paradigm. To complement existing laboratory-based studies, there is also a call for the study of BCI in real world contexts. In this paper we present such a real world stu...

This paper presents an exploration of how images captured by a wearable camera, SenseCam, might foster reflection on everyday experiences. SenseCams were provided to multiple members of four households who wore them simultaneously and reviewed the images after one week, and then again after a period of 18 months. The findings reveal how images capt...

Older adults view contact with family as being worthy of time and dedication, and show a preference for 'heavyweight' forms of contact. In contrast, younger generations are increasingly adopting lightweight communication technologies. Preliminary findings from the deployment of a lightweight messaging device show that while the flexibility that it...

As more technologies enter the home, householders are burdened with the task of digital housekeeping-managing and sharing digital resources like bandwidth. In response to this, we created and evaluated a domestic tool for bandwidth management called Home Watcher. Our field trial showed that when resource contention amongst different household membe...

In this paper we present a novel input device and associated UI metaphors for Cloud computing. Cloud computing will give users access to huge amount of data in new forms as well as anywhere and anytime, with applications ranging from Web data mining to social networks. The motivation of this work is to provide users access to cloud computing by a n...

We present findings from a field study of Wayve, a situated messaging device for the home that incorporates handwriting and photography. Wayve was used by 24 households (some of whom were existing social networks of family and friends) over a three-month period. We consider the various types of playfulness that emerged during the study, both throug...

While it can be a delicate and emotionally-laden topic, new technological trends compel us to confront a range of problems and issues about death and bereavement. This area presents complex challenges and the associated literature is extensive. In this paper we offer a way of slicing through several perspectives in the social sciences to see clearl...

This paper reports on research into the use of SenseCam, a wearable automatic camera. Household members were given multiple SenseCams to enable an exploration of how the device would be used in the context of everyday life. We argue that understanding the 'small stories' created by household members based around SenseCam images requires us to pay a...

In this paper we describe VPlay, a multi-touch tabletop application that allows users to mix and manipulate multiple video streams in real-time. Our aim is to explore how such an interactive surface can support and augment practices around VJing – a form of video performance art that is becoming increasingly popular in nightclubs and other music ev...

Shake2Talk is a mobile messaging system that allows users to send sounds and tactile sensations to one another via their mobile phones. Messages are created through gestures and then sent to the receiver's phone where they play upon arrival. This paper reports a study of the Shake2Talk system in use by six couples, and begins to uncover the types o...

A number of academic and industrial researchers participated in a workshop, held in Seville, Spain in March, 2007, to present their views and discuss issues that were essential for the future of human-computer interaction (HCI). The participants participated in the workshop, entitled 'HCI in 2020', expressing a wide range of opinions regarding the...

We present the results of a field trial in which a visual answer machine, the BubbleBoard, was deployed in five households. The aims of the trial were to create an improved answer machine, but also, and more interestingly, to encourage family members to appropriate it through the inclusion of open and playful design elements. Through making aspects...

Taking a look at the development of mobile telephone technology since its inception reveals a number of philosophical assumptions implicit in the design and rhetoric surrounding these devices. The first of these assumptions concerns the importance given over to removing communication possibilities from the binds of

SenseCam is an automatic wearable camera, often seen as a tool for the creation of digital memories. In this paper, we report findings from a field trial in which SenseCams were worn by household members over the course of a week. In interviews with these users, it became apparent that the way in which SenseCam images were played back, the manner o...

In this paper, we describe the design and ethnographic study of a phone developed so as to allow people to glance at each other, rather than simply message or voice call. Glancephones work through having a form factor that allows them to be placed upright when a user want to be available for glancing, and support a web- based application that allow...

This paper reflects on the views of the human that were oriented to in two distinct research labs and which have been used to populate an inventive landscape over the past twenty years. It suggests that there are commonalities to the views in question, making them essentially the same. Both emphasise body movement at the expense of expression and b...

Six households were given multiple SenseCams, a life-logging device, to use over the course of one week. This paper presents an exploration of how the resulting image streams were used to trigger reflections, both on the users' own lives and on those of each other, and to offer new insights into the everyday. Further, reflection was invited not onl...

For us, the term agency is a label to define that property of an artefact that gives it a place in some train of human action. Now, from this view, an artefact might be given agency by dint of being hit with another object held by a person. Thus the mechanics of movement could be a label for an agency of sorts. This view has no interest to us. Our...

Public digital displays are increasingly pervasive and an important enabling technology for many types of ubiquitous computing scenarios. Not only do they provide a simple and effective way of bringing digital information into our physical world, but their presence could also be a catalyst for situated interaction and the emergence of local user-ge...

In this article, we examine the containment of clutter in family homes and, from this, outline considerations for design. Selected materials from an ethnographically informed study of home life are used to detail the ways in which families contain their clutter in bowls and drawers. Clutter, within these containers, is found to be made up of a hete...

We present a review of literature from the fields of gerontology, HCI and human factors, which focus on the nature of family and peer relationships in old age. We find both simplistic, prevailing models of what it means to be old, as well as deeper insights which often belie these models. In addition, we discover that new technologies are often als...

This paper reports the trial of a wearable data capture device, SenseCam, as a resource for digital narratives and uses data from the trial to reflect on the models of the 'mind' that underscore HCI. More particularly, over a period of one week, 5 participants and 2 researchers used SenseCams to capture digital traces of their experiences, and used...

In this paper we describe a novel interaction technique that allows users to access and share rich multi-media content via a large, situated public display and their own Bluetooth enabled camera phone. The proposed system differs from other solutions in that it does not require any client software to be installed on the user's device. We believe th...

In this paper, we present material from an ongoing ethnographic investigation of family life. Drawing on selected fieldwork materials, we look at the ways families deal with household clutter, and in particular how clutter can be contained in bowls and drawers. Based on this research, a case is made for rethinking digital media management in domest...

This paper reports the trial of a memory prosthesis, SenseCam, as a resource for digital narratives. Over a period of one week, six participants were asked to use SenseCams to capture digital traces of their experiences, and to use the same to create 'story telling' materials for presentation. The study found that all users delighted in the devices...

In this article we consider what it should mean to build 'smartness' or 'intelligence' into the home. We introduce an argument suggesting that it is people who imbue their homes with intelligence by continually weaving together things in their physical worlds with their everyday routines and distinct social arrangements. To develop this argument we...

In this paper, we report, first of all, the discovery of a particular kind of emerging social practice involving the exchange of multimedia content on mobiles that we label 'trafficking'. Second, the iteration of a design solution to extend these practices to include the trafficking of broadcast TV content 'segments'. Third, the implications this h...

This paper will describe a novel interaction technique that allows mobile phone users to create and share contextualised media packages between their personal, BlueTooth enabled camera phones, and situated public displays. Unlike other solutions to this problem, the one presented in this paper does not require any specialist software or hardware on...

There is much interest in providing effective mobile search tools. Our focus is the value of in-situ sharing of users' mobile search activity. The QnotA prototype displays other people's queries about locations in an attempt to both provide users with an enriched sense of the places they visit, and to accommodate the limited input and output capabi...

In this paper we elucidate the patterns of behavior of home movie makers through a study of 12 families and a separate focus group of 7 teenagers. Analogous to a similar study of photowork (13), the goal is to provide a deeper understanding of what people currently do with video technologies, balancing the preponderence of techno-centric work in th...

Mobile search is becoming an increasingly important user activity. In this paper, instead of investigating the most efficient and effective ways of providing search results, the answers, we consider the value of giving access to previous queries, the questions, relating to a user's location. By exposing what other people have searched for, the aim...

VideoPlay is a novel tabletop system for editing video using tangible objects and multi-touch interaction. It targets the unique capabilities of the Microsoft Surface platform which supports high precision multi-touch and physical object sensing and tracking. New interaction techniques are presented that allow content to be downloaded from mobile d...