Alan Dix - research topics

mobile users and mobile interfaces

interfaces and infrastructure for mobile multimedia applications

This work was funded by EPSRC under the MNA Program. Based on previous work at both sites, in particular the MOST and GUIDE projects at Lanacaster, Alan's previous writings on mobile interfaces and his work with Devina Ramduny on CSCW architectures.

Mobility is itself quite a broad concept:

• small devices that move with you - PDAs, laptop computers etc.
• moving between devices - hot-desking
• moving within an instrumented environment - intelligent buildings and intelligent appliances
• devices within moving vehicles- computers in cars, HAL

However, these can all be seen as a broader research agenda:

the design of appropriate computational environments for people: wherever they are, whoever they meet, whatever they are doing

User interface issues include:

• feedback - how quickly you see the effects of your own actions
• feedthrough - how quickly other people see the effects of your actions (and you see theirs)
• integration - the fluidity with which disparate devices that 'come together' can function together
• synchronisation - the ease and accuracy with which information captured on one device is made available to others
• interfaces - how to make the most value from small displays, keypads, audio interaction
• context - how to capture and exploit the context of interaction to deliver appropriate services

Many of these are also issues for stand-alone or distributed systems anyway, but mobility adds extra problems or opportunities. For example, feedback becomes increasingly problematic when wireless links are unreliable. On the other hand, mobile devices - because they move with you, may have more contextual information available - where you are (GPS), perhaps who you are meeting.

The user-interface behaviour is intimately related to system architecture, especially time related aspects (feedback and feedthrough). Other architectural and programming issues are only significant when they go wrong!

Some architectural issues include:

• where you place user interface and shared (in the CSCW sense) data in a dynamic computational environment
• whether and how to make use of additional computational power within the physical network
• managing mobility of code and data for running user interfaces
• designing applications where some computation runs on untrusted or unreliable devices

See also Alan's research topics pages on time, web architectures and versioning in CSCW

Some relevant papers (incomplete)

Papers focused centrally on mobility and context

• A. Dix, D. Ramduny, T. Rodden and N. Davies (1999).
  Places to stay on the move - software architectures for mobile user interfaces.
  Second Workshop on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices. 31st August 1999, Edinburgh.
  abstract || full paper (PDF).
• T. Rodden, K. Cheverst, N. Davies and A. Dix (1998).
  Exploiting context in HCI design for Mobile Systems.
  Workshop on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices, Glasgow, 21st & 22nd May 1998.
  extended abstract
• A. J. Dix (1995).
  Cooperation without (reliable) Communication: Interfaces for Mobile Applications.
  Distributed Systems Engineering, 2(3): pp. 171-181.
  abstract || full paper (PDF, 138K)
• A. J. Dix and R. Beale, Eds. (1996).
  Remote cooperation: CSCW issues for mobile and tele-workers.
  Springer Verlag, ISBN 3-540-76035-0.
• A. J. Dix and R. Beale (1996).
  Information requirements of distributed workers.
  In Remote cooperation: CSCW issues for mobile and tele-workers, Eds. A. J. Dix and R. Beale. Springer Verlag. pp. 113-143.

Related architectures papers (see also web architectures pages)

• D. Ramduny, A. Dix and T. Rodden (1998).
  Getting to Know: the design space for notification servers.
  Proceedings of CSCW'98. (to appear)
  abstract || full paper (html)
• Alan Dix (1998).
  Finding Out - event discovery using status-event analysis
  Formal Aspects of Human Computer Interaction FAHCI98, Sheffield, 5th&6th September 1998.
  abstract || full paper (compressed postscript)

Papers on versioning for mobile and distributed working (see also versioning pages)

• A. J. Dix and V. C. Miles (1992).
  Version control for asynchronous group work.
  YCS 181, Department of Computer Science, University of York, (Poster presentation HCI'92: People and Computers VII).
  full paper (compressed postscript)
• A. J. Dix (1994).
  Cooperation without Communication: the problems of highly distributed working.
  RR9404, University of Huddersfield.
  abstract || full paper (compressed postscript)
• A. Dix (1995).
  LADA - A logic for the analysis of distributed action.
  Interactive Systems: Design, Specification and Verification,, Ed. F. Paterno. (Proceedings of 1st Eurographics Workshop, Bocca di Magra, Italy, June 1994), Springer-Verlag. pp. 317-332.
  abstract || full paper (compressed postscript)
• A. Dix, T. Rodden and I. Sommerville (1997).
  Modelling Versions in Collaborative Work. IEE Proceedings - Software Engineering, 144(4) pp. 195-205.
  abstract || full paper (compressed postscript)

Papers about temporal feedback/feedthrough issues (see also time pages)

• A. J. Dix (1992).
  Pace and interaction.
  Proceedings of HCI'92: People and Computers VII, Eds. A. Monk, D. Diaper and M. Harrison. Cambridge University Press. 193-207.
  abstract || full paper (compressed postscript)
• A. Dix (1994).
  Que sera sera - The problem of the future perfect in open and cooperative systems.
  Proceedings of HCI'94: People and Computers IX, Eds. G. Cockton, S. W. Draper and G. R. S. Weir. Glasgow, Cambridge University Press. 397-408.
  abstract || full paper(html) || full paper (compressed postscript)