DIADEM at MobileHCI 2009

We (Andi Winterboer & Henriette Cramer, both University of Amsterdam) represented the DIADEM project at MobileHCI’09 in Bonn, Germany. One of the main goals of the Diadem project is to detect potentially hazardous chemical incidents in urban-industrial areas using input from both a distributed sensor network and people through their mobile phones. In the interaction model proposed in the presented paper, a semi-autonomous system will use sensor data to detect abnormal situations, while people in the affected area will be requested by a mobile service to report additional observations, such as chemical smells (which may not be the easiest to describe).

This raises quite some interesting issues. The system should be capable of communicating with different people taking into account the wide variety of situations they might be in. The system’s goals in gathering information might differ from users’ own, immediate goals. On the one hand, the system requires unbiased information from users to determine the likelihood and location of an incident. On the other hand, users would like to get information as well, express concerns, complain about unfavourable smells, or receive instructions in the (unlikely) event of a hazardous incident. In many cases, detected anomalies will not be indicative of a serious problem, but the system will have interrupted users anyway. Such a system needs to build a long-term relationship that motivates users to provide unbiased information. It should also react in a socially acceptable manner that takes into account the nuisance of interruptions, users’ other activities and their emotional state.

The conference was a great way to present the project to the Mobile HCI community and we raised quite some interest.

The poster can be found here:
http://awinterboer.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/winterboeretalmobilehci09.pdf