Advanced Soldier Sensor Information System and Technology
Yes, that spells ASSIST.
Check out this call for proposals from DARPA (also see Wired News). This research program is designed to create and evaluate systems that use sensors to capture soldiers’ experiences in the field, thus allowing for (spatially and temporally) distant review and analysis of this data, as well as augmenting their abilities while still in the field.
I found it interesting to consider differences in requirements between this program and others that would apply some similar technologies and involve similar interactions — but for other purposes. For example, two such uses are (1) everyday life recording for social sharing and memory and (2) rich data collection as part of ethnographic observation and participation.
When doing some observation myself, I strung my cameraphone around my neck and used Waymarkr to automatically capture a photo every minute or so. Check out the results from my visit to a flea market in San Francisco.
Photos of two ways to wear a cameraphone from Waymarkr. Incidentally, Waymarkr uses the cell-tower-based location API created for ZoneTag, a project I worked on at Yahoo! Research Berkeley.
Also, for a use more like (1) in a fashion context, see Blogging in Motion. This project (for Yahoo! Hack Day) created a “auto-blogging purse” that captures photos (again using ZoneTag) whenever the wearer moves around (sensed using GPS).
Taxonomy of diary research methods
Diary studies are widely used in human-computer interaction research, but also in user experience research as practiced in product R&D groups. Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli (2003) is a good review of diary research methods from a Psychology perspective. It gives practical guidance in what research questions are suited to these methods, design decisions, tools, and analysis.
Though it covers state-of-the-art technology used for these methods, I think the argument below for the taxonomy of methods used in this paper needs revision in light of new diary methods, e.g. those made possible by using context-aware devices for signaling participants. Here is the argument for the two-way taxonomy (p. 588):
Diary studies have often been classified into the three categories of interval-, signal-, and event-contingent protocols (e.g., Wheeler & Reis 1991). The interval-contingent design, the oldest method of daily event recording, requires participants to report on their experiences at regular, predetermined intervals. Signal-contingent designs rely on some signaling device to prompt participants to provide diary reports at fixed, random, or a combination of fixed and random intervals. Event-contingent studies, arguably the most distinct design strategy, require participants to provide a self-report each time the event in question occurs. This design enables the assessment of rare or specialized occurrences that would not necessarily be captured by fixed or random interval assessments.
As we see it, diary studies serve one of two major purposes: the investigation of phenomena as they unfold over time, or the focused examination of specific, and often rare, phenomena. It appears to us that the three-way classification blends this conceptual distinction with the technological issue of signaling. Instead, we incorporate interval- and signal-contingent designs into a single category, which we call time-based designs.
This argument to collapse the taxonomy does not account for methods in which participants are signaled based on factors other than time. For example, diary studies can include signaling participants to create an entry based on events that are automatically detected by the system: this occurs when the system is immediately aware of the event because it is an interaction with the system (e.g. the participant has just completed a phone call) or because it can infer an appropriate change in state (e.g. the participant has just moved from one place to another, as detected by readings from GPS).