Zachary Pousman, John Satsko
Proceedings of AVI 2006
This paper reviews the literature in ambient information systems and also builds upon existing taxonomies to extract dimensions for this type of information systems. These dimensions are Information Capacity, encompassing the ability for the device to provide various streams of data, and at what rate. Notification Level, providing a classification for various ways to manage users’ attention, from very low (users need to pull the data) to very high (systems requests users’ action explicitly, e.g. dialog box, alarm). Representational Fidelity, presenting various levels of abstraction in representing initial data:
- INDEXICAL: measuring instruments, maps, photographs
- ICONIC: drawings, doodles, caricatures
- ICONIC: Metaphors
- SYMBOLIC: language symbols (letters and numbers)
- SYMBOLIC: abstract symbols
The last dimension used to classify those systems is Aesthetic Emphasis, laying out the care taken in the design of the system to consider aesthetical aspects. Based on these dimensions, the authors identified four design patterns:
What seems to emerge from this analysis, is a necessary compromise between low representational fidelity information displays with low information capacity (the symbolic sculptural display archetype) and more structured way to present many streams of data such as multiple information consolidators and information monitor displays. Though it seems clear that devices like the digital family portrait do not satisfyingly fit in this scheme, since various levels of information can be accessed through interaction (2 levels). It hardly touches the aspects regarding data aggregation, representation of aggregation and interactivity of those displays.
