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ActiveMap: A Visualization Tool for Location Awareness to Support Informal Interactions

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Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1707))

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Abstract

ActiveMap is a visualization tool that enables users to gain greater awareness of the location of people in their workplace environment, increasing each person’s ability to seek out colleagues for informal, face-to-face interactions. Our initial implementation of the tool places images of each person’s face on a map of the building. We have explored variations on how to best represent a range of features: the “freshness” of location information, groups of people in a single office, and the movement of people throughout the environment. We describe the context of the environment in which the tool is used, the features embodied in this tool, variations we have implemented for representing location and movement information, and some potential extensions for future versions of the tool.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Ted Anagnost, another member of the CSTaR Active Environments research group who contributed several ideas to the development of ACTIVEMAP; Andy Fano, for feedback both on the ACTIVEMAP application and this paper; Tony Costa and Ed Gottsman, for suggestions regarding a number of aspects of the application; and the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and useful suggestions for improving this paper. The authors, of course, assume full responsibility for any remaining shortcomings in the document.

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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McCarthy, J.F., Meidel, E.S. (1999). ActiveMap: A Visualization Tool for Location Awareness to Support Informal Interactions. In: Gellersen, HW. (eds) Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing. HUC 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1707. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48157-5_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48157-5_16

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