Although myriad extraordinary benefits have resulted from the web and expanding network connectivity, the intertwining of computers with virtually every aspect of life also brings a growing stream of interruptions. These interruptions and the fragmenting of activity they produce are increasingly accepted parts of modern life. A critical research challenge for human-centered computing is how to smooth and mitigate the impact of interruptions as well as assist in resuming interrupted activities. Meeting this challenge will require moving beyond the traditional document-centric view of information to address the complexity of real activity, its often fragmented history, and the need to access information arrayed across digital and paper media.
This project will explore the design of systems that will allow people to exploit visual and episodic memory to benefit from the capture of the history and context of their computer-mediated activities. The heart of the project is rethinking the nature of data as stored in computers from being a state to being an inspectable activity history of interaction that can be presented to users. Activity-enriched computing has the potential to reshape how we use computers by creating systems that react to and are augmented by the history of past events, changing the computer environment to one in which history is always available to assist if needed. The primary scientific contributions will be to (a) develop an activity-enriched computing framework for designing a new class of systems in which history is a first-class element, (b) prototype and evaluate activity-enriched applications, and (c) extend theory and methods for representing, visualizing, and analyzing activity histories. Scientific contributions will include a novel activity-enriched computing framework that will (a) capture the rich detail of computer-mediated activity, (b) identify and make meaningful and useful episodes available, (c) link the worlds of paper and digital documents, and (d) exploit summarization and visual access mechanisms to support navigation of activity histories and ease resuming interrupted activities. The overarching objective is to lessen the impact of interruptions and aid reestablishment of context.
Broader Impacts: The broader impacts of the proposed activity include the potential to radically improve the efficacy of all computer-mediated activities. The results of the project and the software developed will be widely disseminated and made available on the project website. Additional impact will result from training students in the interdisciplinary approach required to design activity-enriched computing applications, providing research opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students. A long-term impact will be to crystallize a research community to further develop and evolve activity-enriched computing.
