Picture this: it is 40,000 years ago, and you are an early Homo sapiens. You are standing on the savannah. Look around you. What do you see? No billboards, no traffic signs, no logos, and no text. You might see grassland, some trees, or a bank of clouds in the distance. You are in a kind of vast, unspoilt nature reserve. Are you feeling wonderfully relaxed yet? Don’t be mistaken. Unlike the woodland parks where you sometimes go walking of a Sunday, this is not a recreational environment. This is where you live. You must survive here, and the environment is full of information that helps you to do so. An animal you are going to hunt has left tracks in the sand. Are the berries on that tree edible or poisonous? And that birdsong: Does it mean there’s going to be a storm and winter is on its way? Or are the silly birds just singing for their own enjoyment? You can’t be sure: you have to interpret it all. And you are good at that. So good, that you have succeeded in surviving in this environment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ackerman, M., Hindus, D., Mainwaring, S.D. and Starr, B. (1997). Hanging on the ’Wire: A Field Study of an Audio-only Media Space. ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction 4, 39–66.
Amadana (2007). http://en.amadana.com/product/mt123/mt123.html (retrieved May 2007).
Ambient Devices (2007). http://www.ambientdevices.com (retrieved May 2007).
Coutaz, J., Nigay, L. and Salber, D. (1995). Multimodality from the User and System Perspectives. ERCIM Workshop ‘Towards User Interfaces for All: Current Efforts and Future trends’, 30 – 31 October 1995, ICS-FORTH, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
Dahley, A., Wisneski, C. and Ishii, H. (1998). Water Lamp and Pinwheels: Ambient Projection of Digital Information into Architectural Space. Proceedings of the ACM CHI’98 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 269–270.
Diederiks, E.M.A., Meinders, E.R., Van Lier, E., Peter, R.H., Eggen, J.H. and Van Kuijk, J.I. (2004). Method and System for Controlling an Ambient Light and Lighting Unit. Patent WO2004006570.
Dourish, P. and Bly, S. (1992). Portholes: Supporting Awareness in a Distributed Work Group. Proceedings of the ACM CSCW’92 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 541–547.
Eggen, B., Hollemans, G. and Sluis, R. van de (2003). Exploring and Enhancing the Home Experience. Journal on Cognition, Technology and Work, Springer-Verlag, London Ltd. 5, 44–54.
Gaver, W.W., Smith, R.B. and O’Shea, T. (1991). Effective Sounds in Complex Systems: The ARKola Simulation. Proceedings of the ACM CHI’91 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 85–90.
Greenberg, S. and Kuzuoka, H. (2000). Using Digital but Physical Surrogates to Mediate Awareness, Communication and Privacy, in Media Spaces. Personal Technologies 4, 1–17.
Go, K., Carroll, J. and Imamiya, A. (2000). Familyware: Communicating with Someone You Love. Proceedings of the IFIP HOIT 2000 Conference on Home Oriented Informatics and Telematics.
Hindus, D., Mainwaring, S.D., Leduc, N., Hagstrom, A.E. and Bayley, O. (2001). Casablanca: Designing Social Communication Devices for the Home. Proceedings of the ACM CHI’01 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 325–332.
Ishii, H. and Ullmer, B. (1997). Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces Between People, Bits and Atoms. Proceedings of the ACM CHI’97 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 234–241.
Ishii, H., Wisneski, C., Brave, S., Dahley, A., Gorbet, M., Ullmer, B. and Yarin, P. (1998). AmbientROOM: Integrating Ambient Media with Architectural Space. Proceedings of the ACM CHI’97 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 173–174.
Lock, S., Allanson, J. and Phillips, P. (2000). User-Driven Design of a Tangible Awareness Landscape. Proceedings of the ACM DIS'00 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 434–440.
Mensvoort, K. van. (2006) Exploring Next Nature: Nature Changes Along With Us. In Seltman, G., Lippert, W. (Editors). Entry Paradise, New Design Worlds, Birkhauser, ISBN: 3764376961.
Mynatt, E.D., Rowan, J., Jacobs, A. and Craighill, S. (2001). Digital Family Portraits: Supporting Peace of Mind for Extended Family Members. Proceedings of the ACM CHI’01 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 173–174.
Nabaztag (2007). http://www.nabaztag.com/ (retrieved May 2007).
Strong, B. and Gaver, B. (1996). Feather, Scent and Shaker: Supporting Simple Intimacy. Proceedings of the ACM CSCW’96 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 29–30.
Tollmar, K., Junestrand, S. and Torgny, O. (2000). Virtually Living Together. A Design Framework for New Communication Media. Proceedings of the ACM DIS'00 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 83–90.
Tollmar, K. and Persson, J. (2002). Understanding Remote Presence. NordiCHI, 41–49.
Weiser, M. (1991). The Computer for the Twenty-first Century, Scientific American 265, 94–104.
Weiser, M. and Brown, J.S. (1996). The Coming Age of Calm Technology. PowerGrid Journal v 1.01. http://www.teco.edu/lehre/ubiq/ubiq2000-1/calmtechnology.htm
Acknowledgments
The authors like to thank Marco Rozendaal and Othmar Schimmel who were part of the Home Radio project. Also all students of the Department of Industrial Design of the Eindhoven University of Technology who were involved in the Data Fountain and Birds Whispering projects are thanked for their contributions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag London Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Eggen, B., Van Mensvoort, K. (2009). Making Sense of What Is Going on ‘Around’: Designing Environmental Awareness Information Displays. In: Markopoulos, P., De Ruyter, B., Mackay, W. (eds) Awareness Systems. Human-Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-477-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-477-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-84882-476-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-84882-477-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)