Sharon McDonald

This proceeding contains a selection of state of the art refereed papers on current Human-Computer Interaction topics, presented at the HCI 2000 conference. This conference is the annual conference of the British HCI Group, and was held at Sunderland University in September 2000. HCI 2000 is the premier European Human-Computer Interaction forum. People and Computers XIV represents a comprehensive guide to current research in HCI which will be essential reading for all researchers, designers and manufacturers who need to keep abreast of developments in HCI.

Proceedings of Hci 2000

People and Computers XIV — Usability or Else!

Yvonne Waern

Gilbert Cockton

Currently we are at the beginnings of widespread wireless connectivity and ubiquitous computing. The Web is merging with a variety of technologies: cell phones, laptop computers, hand held organisers, information appliances, and GPS and other sensors. The capability for access anytime and anywhere is here. The increasing frequency of cell phone calls at inappropriate times testifies that people no longer can easily control access. Devices can determine where they are located and can make a range of information available to users as well as make users available to others or their devices. We have proposed a general technique that promises to assist in mediating access. It capitalises on advantages afforded by computation(Hollan & Stometta, 1992). We first described the negotiation technique in the context of problems involved in scheduling meetings and then showed that similar issues, which at first may seem unrelated but in fact have much in common, arise in other contexts. One such activity, gaining immediate access, is currently of growing importance because of expanding connectivity via wireless technology. Cell phones and related technologies make it possible to be constantly available for synchronous interaction. At times, this can be advantageous but the associated costs and benefits result in a complex tradeoff space for designers as well as users.

Sharon McDonald

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