Issues in Personalizing Shared Ubiquitous Devices

David Hilbert and Jonathan Trevor, FX Palo Alto Laboratory

hilbert@fxpal.com, trevor@fxpal.com

Seminar on People, Computers, and Design
Stanford University January 24, 2003

Everywhere we go, we are surrounded by shared devices: TVs, stereos, and appliances in the home; copiers, fax machines, and projectors in the office; phones and vending machines in public. Because these devices don't know who we are, they provide the same interface and functionality to everyone. This lack of personalization in the real world is reminiscent of the World Wide Web in its infancy--no matter who you were, you saw the same Web pages as everyone else. Today, personalization has made the Web more friendly, efficient, and profitable. Our research seeks to personalize shared real world devices to reap some of the same benefits. This talk covers three topics: (1) the design of the PIPs system for personalizing multi-user document devices such as projectors, shared displays, and multi-function copiers; (2) the experimental method we employed, which is applicable to other HCI, CSCW, and ubiquitous systems research; and (3) how data collected over the past two years has helped us refine and evolve our research and prototypes.

David Hilbert is a research scientist at FX Palo Alto Laboratory. His research interests are in the design and evaluation of practical HCI, CSCW, and ubiquitous computing applications. He received a PhD in information and computer science from the University of California, Irvine. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Jonathan Trevor is a senior research scientist at FX Palo Alto Laboratory, where he works in ubiquitous systems and computer-supported cooperative work. His current research interests are in the development of readily accessible groupware and human-computer interaction applications across a range of technologies and platforms. He received a PhD in computer science from the University of Lancaster.

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