| dc.description.abstract | This thesis is a collection of six papers that explores new IT use
in local mobility, i.e., the mobility of people in limited areas such
as office environments. The overall research question asked in
the thesis is: how can work related locally mobile interaction be
supported using context aware applications? To answer the
question, I have participated in theoretical and empirical
investigations, as well as elaborated on design ideas that have
been implemented and evaluated empirically.
The empirical investigations revealed two main results:
The concepts of “scalability through cultivation” and “mobile
meetings.” Based on the concept of cultivation and coordination
theory, as well as a field study of locally mobile work processes
in a plant, we introduce the idea of “scalability through
cultivation” as a novel perspective on how to scale up (mobile)
work processes. Our claim is: to scale up the mobile work
processes investigated, the co-ordination between operations
should be improved to decrease the risk of disruptions. The
second empirically based result is the concept of “the mobile
meeting,” which is a work-related type of informal
communication between locally mobile people in office
environments, which according to our fieldwork, plays an
important role in office work.
Based on the fieldwork, design elaborations and
theoretical studies, we have developed and evaluated two novel
application concepts for local mobility: The “Proxy Lady” and the
“Desk Panel.” Proxy Lady is a novel context aware application
that uses the proximity of people as a means to support
opportunistic interaction. According to our evaluation results,
people recognize the task domain and find it important. The
Desk Panel application also utilizes proximity as a means to offer
novel application support. Desk Panel is a combination of a
stationary and mobile system, which lets locally mobile people
with handheld devices easily access personal information such
as emails, on large screens placed in the office environment. | |
