Mobile Context Of Use Research Articles

Unintended consequences of a strategically ambiguous organizational policy selectively restricting mobile device use at work

Mobile devices have permeated organizations creating diverse communication opportunities and new organizational challenges. This case study examines one of those challenges: creating a strategically ambiguous mobile device use policy to combat misuse in an organization. We use focus group data collection and a subsequent constant comparative analysis to examine a U.S. company with an organizational policy selectively restricting mobile device access for nonmanagerial workers. The findings and resulting theoretical model reflect the tension employees face when interpreting a restrictive mobile device use policy within the context of mobile use as “taken for granted.” This tension is manifest through four unintended consequences of the strategically ambiguous policy: (a) declining productivity, (b) supervisors burdened by overwhelming tasks, (c) decreased professional mobility, and (d) fleeting organizational identification. This research offers an organizational contribution to the current work on mobiles and it provides insight into how nonmanagerial workers interpret and act when a mobile use policy is strategically ambiguous.

Addressing the Context of Use in Mobile Computing: a Survey on the State of the Practice

Understanding the context of use is essential to the design of interactive systems. In contrast to the relatively stable and homogeneous use context in stationary computing, the context of use in mobile computing is dynamic and heterogeneous. Although mobile context has been studied from a theoretical perspective, empirical data on how practitioners address the mobile context of use is scant. With the emergence of more advanced mobile technologies, improved interfaces and the ubiquitous character of mobile apps, questions related to context of use and how designers and developers collect relevant data become even more pressing. This paper presents the results of a survey based on a convenience sample of 150 practitioners involved in mobile app design and development. Our results show that the mobile context of use is mainly considered in the early phase of requirements gathering and specification, while there is a lack of external context-related considerations in evaluations. Methods that are perceived as being more appropriate to address the mobile context are also perceived as being more effective, though they are used considerably less frequently. A key to addressing the mobile context is to improve the utility of such methods, taking the time and budget constraints of practitioners, as well as their experience, into consideration.

Improving the controllability of tilt interaction for mobile map-based applications

This article proposes enhanced techniques for improving the controllability of tilt interaction. Tilt interaction offers an intuitive, one-handed form of interaction for mobile applications. Tilt interaction is particularly well-suited to mobile map-based applications, where traditional mobile interaction techniques suffer from several shortcomings. Current implementations of tilt interaction, however, suffer from several shortcomings. Existing zooming techniques used in conjunction with tilt interaction are often difficult to control. Tilt-controlled panning can also be difficult to control in a mobile context of use, where the user's walking motion affects the accuracy of tilt interaction. The use of rate-controlled tilt interaction to perform zooming is proposed. Two different approaches to sensitivity adaptation are investigated, where the sensitivity of tilt-controlled panning is automatically adjusted to compensate for the user's current context of use. A usability study was conducted with thirty participants to evaluate the proposed techniques. The results of the usability study showed that tilt zooming offered better efficiency, user satisfaction and perceived workload than gesture zooming. The use of a static dampening factor to compensate for walking motion was found to provide actual and perceived controllability improvements.

Staying Safe and Guilty Pleasures

Staying Safe and Guilty Pleasures