Project ABP

When you walk into your house, how and where do you retrieve messages left by other family members, roommates, friends, or even by yourself? You might first go to the answering machine to check phone messages, then go to the computer to check email, then pass by the dining table and see a note from your child, and in glancing at the fridge, see a reminder note that you left yourself. In the process of receiving all these messages, you may create more messages, by writing down someone's phone number and other to do’s.

Today, our households are becoming congested with the different types of messages: voicemail, e-mail, post-it notes, whiteboard notes, and mobile devices. With this proliferation of messaging systems, chances are increasing that you will miss an essential, timely message. It is also difficult to know how to best send a message to someone, so you are confident that they will receive it. Messaging system aside, what we want to do is leave a message for someone at the right time and place and then receive relevant information quickly and clearly. And this is the goal of our interface.

The ABP Interface

The system we designed, called the Family Messaging System (code named "ABP"), is a proposed system for creating, organizing and sending messages among family members inside and outside of the home. Many families today communicate with each other through a combination of voicemail, handwritten notes, PDA-based notes, and email. The goal of ABP is to consolidate the strengths of each of these message types and to allow users to quickly and easily send messages to the right person at the right time and the right place. To do this, we focused on designing an intuitive interface that naturally integrated into the home.

We designed three ways of interacting with ABP: a central console located in a transition area within the home, such as by the front door, a PDA interface for accessing the console functions when away from the console, and mobile units, similar in size and shape to a pager, that allow for stylus input of notes and can be attached to objects around the house. The three interfaces are aware of each other and the state of the messages between each other. Users can send messages to individual family members or to the mobile units, which can be associated with objects in the home, for example the refrigerator or the TV. At the console, users can manage their incoming messages and check the status of their sent messages. In addition to text messages, ABP allows family members and outside callers to leave voice messages, which are integrated into the interface.

Project Background

An FCE built into a family setting has several important design requirements. First, the interface must accommodate multiple users interacting with the same interface, perhaps simultaneously, by acknowledging public and private communication in the home. Second, the interface must be accessible from where the user wishes to perform the task, which for messaging, could be anywhere inside or outside of the home. Lastly, the house is an interactive, fluid environment, so the interface must allow for interruptions and incomplete tasks.