From Conception to Design

Abstract

This chapter discusses displays that sit on the periphery of a user’s attention. Many public displays of information that we encounter are in this category the majority of the time, including clocks, posters, and windows. Computationally enhanced variations on this theme are called peripheral displays. Our work focuses on ambient displays, a subset of peripheral displays that continuously display information to be monitored. Peripheral (and ambient) displays have the peculiar property that they are not meant to be the focus of the user’s attention. Contrast this with desktop applications, which require a user’s attention. In this chapter, we present a case study of two public ambient displays that we developed and evaluated. We present some lessons learned about the design of ambient displays, and conclude with a practical guide to using a modified version of heuristic evaluation that we developed as a result of designing these displays.