Locating family values:A field trial of the Whereabouts clock

Barry Brown1, Alex Taylor2, Shahram Izadi2, Abigail Sellen2, Joseph Kaye3, Rachel Eardley4

University of California San Diego1, Microsoft Research Cambridge2, Information Science, Cornell University3, Skype4

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A family positioning device

Tracks location of family members and displays position on a clock like display

Users are tracked by GSM positioning on their phone handsets, which they also used to register places as Home, Work and School

The Whereabouts clock

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Demo

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Parsimonious design

Fixed not mobile

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Longer term trial rather than lots of participants

Tested the clock with five families over six months, with at least one month with each family

Two families had the clock for 2 months

Interviewed participants every week (more or less) collected message and location logs and used them in the interviews

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5 families from the Cambridge area recruited through local school connections with Microsoft

Idiosyncratic

e.g. Vicar, nurse, IT consultant, retired, technical support, circuit board assembly, charity worker

unemployment, religion, home working, father at home/mother at work, multi-home seperated families

London & Cambridge families

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Uses of the clock8

Using the clock

72% of trial days were tracked

Between 47% and 80% of trial days were tracked for participants

1.6 messages per participant per week

Co-ordination, Reassurance, Connectedness & Identity

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Co-ordination

Put the kettle on momentsA few times Jon has not left a message and around about quarter to six-ish I’ve seen his photo move up to HOME and I’ve thought “ooh, Jon is coming home.” and I’ve had a cup of tea ready for him before he’s even walked in the house

Messaging the house

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Reassurance

Much more valuable: telling family members what they already know

So I just come in and you know, ‘yep, everybody’s in the right place. All’s right with the world’, you know, just at a glance… It’s just umm, it is just nice. It’s not checking up on people. It’s just a nice little reassurance. Everyone’s where they should be and everything’s right, or at least their phones are in the right place [laughs]. I mean, you know, you can take these things too far… but you’re not using it as a security device like that.

Chimes communicating routine

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When you haven't- When you can't visualise where your off-spring are,

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there's sort of a basic instinct about wanting to visualise where they are and actually I think in some way the Clock helps me think 'yes, they've definitely got there, and they're definitely there now, and they're on their way home. It's another- It's an additional tool to that visualisation really.

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Connectedness

Connecting those inside the house with those outside

Family members across different homes

‘Home’ as multiple places, but all still home

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Identity

Home:

School:

Boyfriend’s home and family home

Train station where she picks boyfriend up after work

Work:

School:

Gardening

Walking the dog

Daughter Mother

Work:

Home:

Using the computer at home

Watching TV

Home:

School:

Household home

School

Father Son

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Social touch

Messaging used heavily to communicate ‘social touch’ messages

Fitting into the emotional repartee of the home

As with so many practical things in the home was used to play with the social organization of the home

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The clock and family life

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Privacy

Despite repeated questioning, none of the families reported worries about privacy

Yeah, so a lot of my friends have said “So your parents are checking up on you” like. I said nah this is not that. It’s not accurate enough. It doesn’t tell you exactly where I am so I can go places and they won’t know where I am.

Level of detail failed to cause concern, even when we raised the possibility of hackers or phones being lost

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From location to location-in interaction

Accuracy, resolution, coverage not as a technical feature of a system but for what they mean in interaction

In interaction they have quite different features and this leads to different technical systems

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The production of family

Families as a ‘work in progress’

The clock as a way of supporting ‘family geographies’

Helping to reveal the routines of those distant

Family members ‘seen to monitor’ each others activity

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Family technologies

Designing location technology for family life

qualitative location tracking

Indoor location tracking

Rethinking the ‘smart’ in smart homes

Technology to support families being families

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Happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

(%om Anna Karenina)

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