We report the results of a long-term, multi-site field trial of a situated device for families called the “Whereabouts Clock”. The Clock displayed family members’ current location as one of four privacy-preserving, deliberately coarse-grained categories (HOME, WORK, SCHOOL or ELSEWHERE). In use, the Clock supported not only family co-ordination but also more emotive aspects of family life such as reassurance, connectedness, identity and social touch. This emphasized aspects of family life frequently neglected in Ubicomp, such as the ways in which families’ awareness of each others’ activities contributes to a sense of a family’s identity. We draw further on the results to differentiate between location as a technical aspect of awareness systems and what we characterize as “location-in-interaction”. Location-in- interaction is revealed as an emotional, accountable and even moral part of family life.

1. Locating family values:
A field trial of the Whereabouts clock
Barry Brown1, Alex Taylor2, Shahram Izadi2, Abigail Sellen2, Joseph Kaye3, Rachel Eardley4
University of California San Diego1, Microsoft Research Cambridge2, Information Science, Cornell University3, Skype4
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5. A family positioning device
Tracks location of family
members and displays position on
a clock like display
Users are tracked by GSM
positioning on their phone
handsets, which they also used to
register places as Home, Work
and School
The Whereabouts clock
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6. Demo
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7. Parsimonious design
Fixed not mobile
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8. Longer term trial rather than lots of participants
Tested the clock with five families over six months, with
at least one month with each family
Two families had the clock for 2 months
Interviewed participants every week (more or less)
collected message and location logs and used them in the
interviews
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9. London & Cambridge families
5 families from the Cambridge area recruited through local
school connections with Microsoft
Idiosyncratic
e.g. Vicar, nurse, IT consultant, retired, technical support, circuit
board assembly, charity worker
unemployment, religion, home working, father at home/mother at
work, multi-home seperated families
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10. Uses of the clock
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11. Using the clock
72% of trial days were tracked
Between 47% and 80% of trial days were tracked for participants
1.6 messages per participant per week
Co-ordination, Reassurance, Connectedness & Identity
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12. Co-ordination
Put the kettle on moments
A few times Jon has not left a message and around about
quarter to six-ish I’ve seen his photo move up to HOME and
I’ve thought “ooh, Jon is coming home.” and I’ve had a cup of
tea ready for him before he’s even walked in the house
Messaging the house
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13. Reassurance
Much more valuable: telling family members what they already
know
So I just come in and you know, ‘yep, everybody’s in the right place. All’s
right with the world’, you know, just at a glance… It’s just umm, it is just
nice. It’s not checking up on people. It’s just a nice little reassurance.
Everyone’s where they should be and everything’s right, or at least their
phones are in the right place [laughs]. I mean, you know, you can take these
things too far… but you’re not using it as a security device like that.
Chimes communicating routine
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14. When you haven't- When you can't visualise where your
off-spring are,
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15. there's sort of a basic instinct about wanting to visualise
where they are and actually I think in some way the Clock
helps me think 'yes, they've definitely got there, and they're
definitely there now, and they're on their way home. It's
another- It's an additional tool to that visualisation really.
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16. Connectedness
Connecting those inside the house with those outside
Family members across different homes
‘Home’ as multiple places, but all still home
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17. Identity
Home: Boyfriend’s home and family Work: Gardening
home
School: Walking the dog
School: Train station where she picks
boyfriend up after work
Daughter Mother
Work: Using the computer at home Home: Household home
Home: Watching TV School: School
Father Son
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18. Social touch
Messaging used heavily to communicate ‘social touch’ messages
Fitting into the emotional repartee of the home
As with so many practical things in the home was used to play
with the social organization of the home
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19. The clock and family life
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20. Privacy
Despite repeated questioning, none of the families reported
worries about privacy
Yeah, so a lot of my friends have said “So your parents are checking up on
you” like. I said nah this is not that. It’s not accurate enough. It doesn’t
tell you exactly where I am so I can go places and they won’t know where I am.
Level of detail failed to cause concern, even when we raised the
possibility of hackers or phones being lost
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21. From location to
location-in interaction
Accuracy, resolution, coverage not as a technical feature of a
system but for what they mean in interaction
In interaction they have quite different features and this leads to
different technical systems
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22. The production of family
Families as a ‘work in progress’
The clock as a way of supporting
‘family geographies’
Helping to reveal the routines of
those distant
Family members ‘seen to monitor’
each others activity
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23. Family technologies
Designing location technology for family life
qualitative location tracking
Indoor location tracking
Rethinking the ‘smart’ in smart homes
Technology to support families being families
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24. Happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its
own way
(%om Anna Karenina)
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