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When design just isn’t enough: the unanticipated challenges of the real world for large collaborative displays

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Abstract

Large interactive displays for supporting workgroup collaboration comprise a growing area of ubiquitous computing research and many such systems have been designed and deployed in laboratory studies and research settings. Such displays face difficulties in real-world deployments, as they are often supplemental technologies as opposed to primary tools for work activities. In this work, we investigate the integration and uptake of the NASA MERBoards, shared interactive displays that were deployed to support science tasks in the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) missions. We examine the hurdles to adoption imposed specifically by the real-world circumstances of the deployment that were external to the design of the system, and explain how these concerns apply to the general deployment of shared ubicomp technologies in the real world.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Motorola Labs, Schaumburg, IL, USA

    Elaine M. Huang

  2. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Elaine M. Huang

  3. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Elizabeth D. Mynatt

  4. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Jay P. Trimble

Authors
  1. Elaine M. Huang
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  2. Elizabeth D. Mynatt
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  3. Jay P. Trimble
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elaine M. Huang.

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Huang, E.M., Mynatt, E.D. & Trimble, J.P. When design just isn’t enough: the unanticipated challenges of the real world for large collaborative displays. Pers Ubiquit Comput 11, 537–547 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-006-0114-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-006-0114-3

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