Alistair Edwards' Mobile Computing Page

Computers that you can carry in your pocket and link up to all sorts of other devices, offer all sorts of possibilities for applications - and for research. This is an area I am interested in researching further.

Please contact me if you are interested in this kind of work, perhaps as a collaboration or if you might want to undertake postgraduate research with me in one of these areas.

Much of the work I have done (mostly in collaboration with students) is summarized in Edwards et al (2001), a paper that was submitted - but rejected - for the Mobiles Workshop 01.

Among the interesting problems to be tackled are:

Small screens

There is a limit to the amount of information one can display on a small, portable screen. Matthew Hunter (1998) investigated some alternative approaches to screen design and Alex Shenton (2001) developed an algorithm to automatically compress text messages. This is particularly relevant to SMS, text messages, which are limited to 160 characters.

Small keyboards

There is a tension between making a keyboard small enough to carry aound but not so small that people cannot use it. A classic example is the use of a telephone keypad for text entry. Byrne (2001) and McLaughlin (1997) have both looked at this problem. In some cases a whole keyboard is not used but rather a small number of buttons must be used. Given a small number, it must be possible to use them in as many ways as possible (single-click, double-click, triple-click, long-click...). Li (2000), Tuffin (2001) and Edwards & Li(2001) describe the collection of data on these different click types.

Interaction in cars

I am concerned about the safety implications of internet terminals in cars. I have published an article on this topic (Edwards 1998) but subsequently further supporting data has become available, including the results of a study in New Zealand, comparing the use of conventional and hands-free phones. Another study has compared the dangers of using a mobile phone while driving with those of being drunk.

References

Edwards, A. D. N. (1998). Surfing and driving don't mix. Interactions 5(3) (May/June): p. 80.

Edwards, Alistair, D. N, Byrne, D., Hunter, M., Li, Y & Shenton (2001) Maximizing interaction with mobile devices: quarts into pint pots (unpublished).

Edwards, Alistair, D. N. & Li, Y (2001) How many ways can ypu use one button? Timing data for button presses. (Unpublished)
This paper is also a reject. It was not accepted for IHM-HCI 2001, quite rightly in my opinion. The main criticism was that the software-derived timings were inaccurate. Bhatnagar (2003) addressed this in his project.

Student projects

I have supervised a number of projects on related topics, as liste below. (A more complete list of previous student projects is also available).

Year	Title	Author	Fetch a PDF copy of the report
2003	Precise Timing Data for the Use of a Single Button	Gautam Bhatnagar
2003	Spoken text messages	Nandish Haria
2002	Why are text messages so popular?	Mark Ocock
2001	Error rates and user perception in the operation of a single button	Jonanthan Tuffin
2001	Measuring comprehension of a text compression algorithm for SMS	Alex Shenton
2001	Layout of a linguistically optimised layout for text entry on a phone keypad	Danny Byrne
2000	Timing data for the use of a single button	Yanyu Li
1998	'Lining Up Keyholes': Investigating the feasibility of a hand-held system for patient visitations	Matthew Hunter
1997	A telephone keypad for alphnumeric input	M. McLaughlin

Alistair Edwards (email name: alistair, domain: cs.york)

3 August 2010