“Because I Carry My Cell Phone Anyway”: Location-Based Information for Everyday Tasks Pam Ludford, Dan Frankowski, Ken Reily, Loren Terveen University.

“Because I Carry My Cell Phone Anyway”: Location-Based Information for Everyday Tasks

Pam Ludford, Dan Frankowski, Ken Reily, Loren TerveenUniversity of Minnesota, Dept. of Computer Science

Presentation Overview

•Why location-based information?

•PlaceMail: the individual use version

•Social PlaceMail: favor coordination

•Local Sketch, Local Search

•How wireless cities can help

Why Location-Based Everyday Information?

Americans spend just over 2.5 hours a day1 at places such as:

•shopping mall

• dry cleaner

• auto repair shop.

1. Klepis, N., Nelson, W., Ott, W., Robinson, J., Tsang, A., Switzer, P., Behar, J., Hern, S., Engelmann, W. The National Human Activity Pattern Survey, Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, May-June 2001, v. 11, n. 3, 231-252.

1) People are busy and they forget to do place-based errands:

Example:

“I forgot to pick up dog food on the way

home from work”

Our Initial Research Findings: Everyday Tasks

2 key problems:

2) People typically use paper lists to manage everyday place-based errands, but lists fail:

a)people misplace their lists

b)people don’t have their lists when they need them

c) lists are messy

PlaceMail (Solo Version)

• Developed on the Motorola i88s GPS cell phone

•Like sending an email to yourself, except instead of specifying a recipient, you choose one or more delivery places:

Sending a (Solo) PlaceMail Message

Step 1:Users create PlaceMail messages by entering them on a computer or cell phone.

They can create audio messages if they wish to avoid typing.

“Pick up dog food”

Step 2:When creating a message, the user specifies the place(s) where she would like to receive the message. People might leave messages at places like a Target store, home, or anywhere!

Behind the scenes, the application stores the latitude and longitude of the place.

Step 3:When the user is at (or near) the place, she receives the message on her cell phone.

Behind the scenes, the cell phone’s GPS checks her location once a minute, and when she is near a place with an outstanding message, PlaceMail delivers it to her on her cell phone!

“Pick up dog food”

Now, how about the social applications of PlaceMail?

•

Shared PlaceMail

Like solo PlaceMail, except you can send messages for others, too

Applications:

1. Shared family grocery list

2. Helping homebound neighbors

Enhancing Local Search

25% of web searches are for geographic local

information2

2. Himmelstein, M., (2005). Local Search: The Internet Is the Yellow Pages, IEEE Computing,Volume: 38, Issue: 2, p. 26- 34.

But current local search technology does not always give complete results.

Examples:

• Small businesses

• Business details

• Activities

• Area overview

Small business example:St. Anthony Main Area

• Surdyk’s,

• Rick’s Market

•Aveda Institute

are not found.

Business Detail Example

I am at my daughter’s hockey game in SW Minneapolis and her hockey stick broke- where is a nearby place that I can get one?

Activity Examples

• Community Education Courses

• Local Support Groups

• Local Activities, such as playgroups

• Civic meetings

Area Overview

Scenarios:

1. A visit to the area

2. Moving to a city

3. Opening a business

Custom Maps – Useful, But Expensive

How can PlaceMail help local search?

• Local data is produced when people use the system

• Our research shows people are willing to let their PlaceMail data be used for local search, sketch

Aveda- check if Tetrazzini salad looks good today- get some Aveda Tea

Kramarczuk’s- potato kieabasa- Warsaw-spiced sausages, 2 links- do they still have Polish Easter spice?- corned beef for Earl, polish burger for Ken, polish burger with sauerkraut for Jean

Rick’s Market- milk eggs watermelon cantaloupe sour cream walnuts grapes- paper towels- bread meat- cucumbers, carrots, milk, spaghetti sauce, Giordano’s pasta tortellini- you’re out of coffee- cheese and choc. Chip cookie dough

Surdyk’s- check prices on smoky gorgonzola, Appalaichan muenster- out of wine- Wine Sale July 3-17- rolling rock- use coupon for dinner special

Search: Retail: food and beverage

PlaceMail data collected included:

• Small businesses

• Business details

• Activities

Why a Wireless City Network?

Good place acquisition technology essential.

“Pick up dog food”

Background:Americans spend over 2 ½ hours a day at places like the grocery store, mall, and dry cleaners, but struggle to organize everyday tasks they do there.

The Problems:

(1) People are busy and they forget to do place-based errands:

Example:

“I forgot to pick up dog food on the way home from work”

(2) People typically use paper lists1 to manage everyday place-based errands, but lists fail:

a) people misplace their listsb) people don’t have their

lists when they need them c) lists are messy

1. 90% of subjects in a study we conducted (see publications) use lists to manage everyday tasks.

(3) Location-based information service designers don’t know when users find it convenient to receive location-based information delivery.

Example:

Jen is going to Target. Does she find it most convenient to receive information for the errand when she is 1 block away from the store? 6 blocks away? 1 mile away? Or where?

“Because I Carry My Cell Phone Anyway”: Delivering Location-Based Information for Everyday Tasks

Authors: Pam Ludford, Dan Frankowski, Ken Reily, Loren Terveen

Acknowledgements: This research is funded by NSF grants IIS 0307459 and CNS 0224392. We gratefully acknowledge Kurt Wilms, John Murphy, Sean McNee, Doreen Hartzell, and Scott Dier for their contributions to PlaceMail. For more information, contact Pam Ludford at [email protected].

The Solution: PlaceMail

We developed and tested PlaceMail. The application runs on a Motorola i88s cell phone equipped with GPS technology.

Here’s how PlaceMail works:

Step 1:Users create PlaceMail messages by entering them on a computer or cell phone. They can create audio messages if they wish to avoid typing.

“Pick up dog food”

Step 2:When creating a message, the user specifies the place(s) where she would like to receive the message. People might leave messages at places like a Target store, home, or anywhere!

Behind the scenes, the application stores the latitude and longitude of the place where the user wants to receive the message. (See our publications for latitude/longitude acquisition methods).

Step 3:When the user is at (or near) the place, she receives the message on her cell phone.

Behind the scenes, the cell phone’s GPS checks her location once a minute, and when she is near a place with an outstanding message, PlaceMail delivers it to her on her cell phone!

Our Research:In the summer of 2005, we conducted an initial user study of PlaceMail. 20 subjects from the Twin Cities participated, all of whom are responsible for doing everyday tasks necessary to maintain a household. Subjects used PlaceMail for 4 weeks.

Key Results:(1) Participants created 344 PlaceMail messages during the experiment.

(2) Subjects liked the idea of receiving place-based everyday task information on their cell phone. One subject explained this is convenient “because I carry my cell phone anyway”.

(3) For 81% of messages delivered during the study, subjects said PlaceMail reminded them to do a task.

(4) We also learned that subjects extensively use paper lists to manage everyday tasks, but lists have problems (see left). In the study, 29% of PlaceMail messages were lists.

(5) The ideal spot at which to deliver location-based information is a function of user’s travel patterns through and area and the geographic layout of the space.

Please see our publications for more results:‘Because I Carry My Cell Phone Anyway: Effective Everyday Task Management’. In submission, CHI 2006.

‘A Comprehensive, Interactive Framework for Place Acquisition’. Zhou, C., Reily, K., Ludford, P., Frankowski, D., Terveen, L. In submission, CHI 2006.

Location-Based Information – What is it?

1. Sensing the location of a mobile device

2. Delivering relevant information to the mobile device based on its location

3. Not necessarily location-based advertising!