Zachary Pousman

Bio: Zachary Pousman is an academic researcher from Georgia Institute of Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Ubiquitous computing & Information visualization. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 13 publications receiving 1040 citations.

A taxonomy of ambient information systems: four patterns of design

Abstract: Researchers have explored the design of ambient information systems across a wide range of physical and screen-based media. This work has yielded rich examples of design approaches to the problem of presenting information about a user's world in a way that is not distracting, but is aesthetically pleasing, and tangible to varying degrees. Despite these successes, accumulating theoretical and craft knowledge has been stymied by the lack of a unified vocabulary to describe these systems and a consequent lack of a framework for understanding their design attributes. We argue that this area would significantly benefit from consensus about the design space of ambient information systems and the design attributes that define and distinguish existing approaches. We present a definition of ambient information systems and a taxonomy across four design dimensions: Information Capacity, Notification Level, Representational Fidelity, and Aesthetic Emphasis. Our analysis has uncovered four patterns of system design and points to unexplored regions of the design space, which may motivate future work in the field.

Casual Information Visualization: Depictions of Data in Everyday Life

Abstract: Information visualization has often focused on providing deep insight for expert user populations and on techniques for amplifying cognition through complicated interactive visual models. This paper proposes a new subdomain for infovis research that complements the focus on analytic tasks and expert use. Instead of work-related and analytically driven infovis, we propose casual information visualization (or casual infovis) as a complement to more traditional infovis domains. Traditional infovis systems, techniques, and methods do not easily lend themselves to the broad range of user populations, from expert to novices, or from work tasks to more everyday situations. We propose definitions, perspectives, and research directions for further investigations of this emerging subfield. These perspectives build from ambient information visualization (Skog et al., 2003), social visualization, and also from artistic work that visualizes information (Viegas and Wattenberg, 2007). We seek to provide a perspective on infovis that integrates these research agendas under a coherent vocabulary and framework for design. We enumerate the following contributions. First, we demonstrate how blurry the boundary of infovis is by examining systems that exhibit many of the putative properties of infovis systems, but perhaps would not be considered so. Second, we explore the notion of insight and how, instead of a monolithic definition of insight, there may be multiple types, each with particular characteristics. Third, we discuss design challenges for systems intended for casual audiences. Finally we conclude with challenges for system evaluation in this emerging subfield.

Personalized Peripheral Information Awareness Through Information Art

Abstract: This article describes development of the concept of Information Art, a type of ambient or peripheral display involving user-specified electronic paintings in which resident objects change appearance and position to foster awareness of personally relevant information. Our approach differs from others, however, in emphasizing end-user control and flexibility in monitored information and its resultant representation. The article provides an overview of the system’s capabilities and describes an initial pilot study in which displays were given to four people to use for an extended period of time. Reactions were quite favorable and the trial use provided suggestions for system improvements.

The Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Location-Aware Handheld Event Planner

Abstract: The problem of designing and evaluating mobile computing applications is of growing concern in the HCI community, due in part to the difficulty of applying traditional design and evaluation methods to increasingly informal and unstructured usage contexts. We describe the design and evaluation of an integrated location-aware event and meeting planner built to work in a PDA form factor. We discuss the limitations and possibilities of location technology on mobile devices and how it can be used to create useful, usable, and elegant applications. We outline major design decisions, the results of qualitative formative evaluation performed with a small number of participants, and the second iteration of the design. Finally, we offer a number of general considerations on the design process and on specific issues related to mobile handheld applications, including reference metrics for design assessment, user training and cross-over effects from desktop systems.

Living with tableau machine: a longitudinal investigation of a curious domestic intelligence

Abstract: We present a longitudinal investigation of Tableau Machine, an intelligent entity that interprets and reflects the lives of occupants in the home. We created Tableau Machine (TM) to explore the parts of home life that are unrelated to accomplishing tasks. Task support for "smart homes" has inspired many researchers in the community. We consider design for experience, an orthogonal dimension to task-centric home life. TM produces abstract visualizations on a large LCD every few minutes, driven by a set of four overhead cameras that capture a sense of the social life of a domestic space. The openness and ambiguity of TM allow for a cycle of co-interpretation with householders. We report on three longitudinal deployments of TM for a period of six weeks. Participant families engaged with TM at the outset to understand how their behaviors were influencing the machine, and, while TM remained puzzling, householders interacted richly with TM and its images. We extract some key design implications for an experience-focused smart home.

A stage-based model of personal informatics systems

Abstract: People strive to obtain self-knowledge. A class of systems called personal informatics is appearing that help people collect and reflect on personal information. However, there is no comprehensive list of problems that users experience using these systems, and no guidance for making these systems more effective. To address this, we conducted surveys and interviews with people who collect and reflect on personal information. We derived a stage-based model of personal informatics systems composed of five stages (preparation, collection, integration, reflection, and action) and identified barriers in each of the stages. These stages have four essential properties: barriers cascade to later stages; they are iterative; they are user-driven and/or system-driven; and they are uni-faceted or multi-faceted. From these properties, we recommend that personal informatics systems should 1) be designed in a holistic manner across the stages; 2) allow iteration between stages; 3) apply an appropriate balance of automated technology and user control within each stage to facilitate the user experience; and 4) explore support for associating multiple facets of people's lives to enrich the value of systems.

The design of eco-feedback technology

Abstract: Eco-feedback technology provides feedback on individual or group behaviors with a goal of reducing environmental impact. The history of eco-feedback extends back more than 40 years to the origins of environmental psychology. Despite its stated purpose, few HCI eco-feedback studies have attempted to measure behavior change. This leads to two overarching questions: (1) what can HCI learn from environmental psychology and (2) what role should HCI have in designing and evaluating eco-feedback technology? To help answer these questions, this paper conducts a comparative survey of eco-feedback technology, including 89 papers from environmental psychology and 44 papers from the HCI and UbiComp literature. We also provide an overview of predominant models of proenvironmental behaviors and a summary of key motivation techniques to promote this behavior.

A Multi-Level Typology of Abstract Visualization Tasks

Abstract: The considerable previous work characterizing visualization usage has focused on low-level tasks or interactions and high-level tasks, leaving a gap between them that is not addressed. This gap leads to a lack of distinction between the ends and means of a task, limiting the potential for rigorous analysis. We contribute a multi-level typology of visualization tasks to address this gap, distinguishing why and how a visualization task is performed, as well as what the task inputs and outputs are. Our typology allows complex tasks to be expressed as sequences of interdependent simpler tasks, resulting in concise and flexible descriptions for tasks of varying complexity and scope. It provides abstract rather than domain-specific descriptions of tasks, so that useful comparisons can be made between visualization systems targeted at different application domains. This descriptive power supports a level of analysis required for the generation of new designs, by guiding the translation of domain-specific problems into abstract tasks, and for the qualitative evaluation of visualization usage. We demonstrate the benefits of our approach in a detailed case study, comparing task descriptions from our typology to those derived from related work. We also discuss the similarities and differences between our typology and over two dozen extant classification systems and theoretical frameworks from the literatures of visualization, human-computer interaction, information retrieval, communications, and cartography.

UbiGreen: investigating a mobile tool for tracking and supporting green transportation habits

Abstract: The greatest contributor of CO2 emissions in the average American household is personal transportation. Because transportation is inherently a mobile activity, mobile devices are well suited to sense and provide feedback about these activities. In this paper, we explore the use of personal ambient displays on mobile phones to give users feedback about sensed and self-reported transportation behaviors. We first present results from a set of formative studies exploring our respondents' existing transportation routines, willingness to engage in and maintain green transportation behavior, and reactions to early mobile phone "green" application design concepts. We then describe the results of a 3-week field study (N=13) of the UbiGreen Transportation Display prototype, a mobile phone application that semi-automatically senses and reveals information about transportation behavior. Our contributions include a working system for semi-automatically tracking transit activity, a visual design capable of engaging users in the goal of increasing green transportation, and the results of our studies, which have implications for the design of future green applications.

Empirical Studies in Information Visualization: Seven Scenarios

Abstract: We take a new, scenario-based look at evaluation in information visualization. Our seven scenarios, evaluating visual data analysis and reasoning, evaluating user performance, evaluating user experience, evaluating environments and work practices, evaluating communication through visualization, evaluating visualization algorithms, and evaluating collaborative data analysis were derived through an extensive literature review of over 800 visualization publications. These scenarios distinguish different study goals and types of research questions and are illustrated through example studies. Through this broad survey and the distillation of these scenarios, we make two contributions. One, we encapsulate the current practices in the information visualization research community and, two, we provide a different approach to reaching decisions about what might be the most effective evaluation of a given information visualization. Scenarios can be used to choose appropriate research questions and goals and the provided examples can be consulted for guidance on how to design one's own study.