the overall theme of my research is human computer interaction (HCI). within this area I have worked with theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of interaction design, development, and use of computerized systems combining ideas from HCI, CSCW and Architecture

i have used sociological methods and theories to study existing situations of social interactions in public places for the purpose of informing the design and implementation of pervasive computer systems facilitating social interactions between groups of friends situated in city environments

my primary focus has been on interaction design for pervasive computing augmenting the city with an electronic perspective on people, places and physical surroundings for users, using ethnographic and contextual inquiry methodologies for understanding context of use. this research focuses on informing new and innovative applications of context-awareness and mobile internet technologies by exploring the development and use of emerging location based services tailored to geographical and social situations - most recently looking at the challenge of augmenting the city with fiction. it also involves analysis of design methods and theoretical perspectives on design (including indexicality and gestalt theory), and the adaptation of existing usability evaluation methods to include both field and lab evaluations of operational systems

context aware computing and indexicality

this stream of research is focused on the design and evaluation of context-aware mobile computing systems, including an exploration of indexicality in interaction design, the theoretical foundations for the design of context-aware mobile device interfaces through literature review and field studies leading to the interaction design and development of a prototype context-aware mobile computer system for operation in a specific domain

my research on design and evaluation of context-aware mobile computing systems has involved three major activities. the first activity included the theoretical exploration of the concept of indexicality, borrowed from the field of semiotics, as a principle for use in the interaction design of pervasive and mobile context-aware computing applications. secondly, detailed interaction design using the iterative paper prototyping method was used to take the outcomes of ethnographic field data collected during my Ph.D. studies to explore alternative indexical interaction designs. This design activity was done during a research visit to Aalborg University in the autumn of 2004 in collaboration with Jesper Kjeldskov. the outcome from this visit was the implementation of an operational indexical context-aware information system. the third activity involved the usability evaluation of this system in both the field and laboratory situations. this involved the adaptation of existing usability evaluation methods to include field evaluation and a focus on evaluating indexical interaction. a comparison of findings from the laboratory and field evaluation extends recent work at the HCI group in Information Systems at Aalborg University

social interactions: from ethnography to interface design

this research uses architectural and sociological methods and theories to study existing situations of physical environments and social interactions in public places for the purpose of informing the design and implementation of pervasive computer systems facilitating social interactions situated in city environments

my Ph.D. research involved three major activities. firstly, a field study of architectural elements of urban space was undertaken in respect to the inhabitants of those spaces using methods and techniques adapted from the field of architecture. Secondly, an ethnographic field study of people socialising in public spaces was conducted and analysed using grounded theory methods. these two studies resulted in novel analytical representations of physical and social aspects of urban environments facilitating pervasive computing interaction design. the third activity was to design and implement a functional prototype of a pervasive computer system exploring the findings from the field studies. the system was implemented as an SQL-based server-side web application facilitating content delivery over HTTP to GPRS or WLAN enabled devices. Resolving the users position in the built environment could be facilitated by GPS or embedded Bluetooth beacons. the use of the prototype system was studied in both field and laboratory settings with twenty groups of users to evaluate the interaction design and to validate the theoretical contributions of the first two activities described above