Intra-Family Information Flow and Prospects for Communication Systems

Abstract: Today, information and communication technology is not only for professional use, but also for private tasks. In this thesis, the use of such technology for managing family information flow is investigated. Busy family life today, with school, work and leisure activites, makes coordination and synchronisation a burden. In what way cell-phones and Internet provides a support for those tasks is investigated, together with proposals for future technology.The problem with coordination and synchronisation were found to be managed by a bulletin board placed at a central point at home. Besides the bulletin board, we found that calendars, shopping lists, and to-do lists are important. The families we investigated in field studies were all intensive users of both Internet and cell-phones.Since the bulletin board played such an important role in the family life, we equipped families with cameras to be able to track what happened at those places with help of photo diaries. The field studies revealed that each family had their own unconscious procedure to manage the flow of notes on the bulletin board.With technology, new problem will emerge. We investigated how notes on typical family bulletin boards may be visualised on a computer screen, and compared click-expand, zoom-pan and bifocal interfaces. The click-expand interface was substantially faster for browsing, and also easier to use.An advantage of information and communication technology is that it may provide possibilities for multiple interfaces to information, and not only different terminals but also from different places. At home, a digital refrigerator door or a mobile web tablet; at work or at school, a conventional computer; when on the move, a cell-phone or a PDA. System architecture for these possibilities is presented.