Understanding situated social interactions in public places

Abstract

Designing context-aware mobile information systems for supporting sociality requires a solid understanding of the users' context, situated interactions, and the interplay between the two. Currently such understanding is lacking in the field of HCI research and is sought after by several authors. Addressing this gap we conducted a field study of small groups socialising in a public place. Based on a grounded analysis of our findings we present a conceptual framework of situated social interactions in public. Finally, we illustrate how this framework informed design of a mobile context-aware prototype. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2005.