skip to main content
article

Dealing with mobility: understanding access anytime, anywhere

Published:01 December 2001Publication History
Skip Abstract Section

Abstract

The rapid and accelerating move towards use of mobile technologies has increasingly provided people and organizations with the ability to work away from the office and on the move. The new ways of working afforded by these technologies are often characterized in terms of access to information and people anytime, anywhere. This article presents a study of mobile workers that highlights different facets of access to remote people and information, and different facets of anytime, anywhere. Four key factors in mobile work are identified: the role of planning, working in "dead time," accessing remote technological and informational resources, and monitoring the activities of remote colleagues. By reflecting on these issues, we can better understand the role of technology and artifacts in mobile work and identify the opportunities for the development of appropriate technological solutions to support mobile workers.

References

  1. ABLONDI,W.F.AND ELIOTT, T. R. 1993. Mobile professional segmentation study. In BIS Strategic Decisions.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. BELLLOTTI,V.AND BLY, S. 1996. Walking away from the desktop computer: distributed collaboration and mobility in a product design team. In 1996 Proceedings of the Conference on Computer- Supported Cooperative Work (Boston, MA, Sept. 17-20), ACM Press, New York, NY, 209-218.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  3. BERQVIST, J., DAHLBERG, P., LJUNGBERG,F.,AND KRISTOFFERSEN, S. 1999. Moving out of the meeting room: Exploring support for mobile meetings. In 1999 Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM Press, New York, NY, 81-98.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. CHURCHILL,E.F.AND WAKEFORD, N. 2001. Framing mobile collaboration and mobile technologies. In Wireless World: Social and Interactional Implications of Wireless Technology. Brown, B., Green, N., and Harper, R. Eds., New York, NY, Springer-Verlag.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  5. DAHLBOM,B.AND LJUNGBERG, F. 1998. Mobile informatics. Scandinavian J. Inf. Syst. 10, 227-234.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  6. ELDRIDGE, N., LAMMING, M., FLYNN, M., JONES,C.,AND PENDLEBURY, D. 2000. Studies of mobile document work and their contributions to the satchel project. In Personal Technol. 4, 102-112.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  7. FITZPATRICK, G., MANSFIELD, T., KAPLAN, S., ARNOLD, D., PHELPS,T.,AND SEGAL, B. 1999. Augmenting the everyday world with Elvin. In Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. B~dker, Kyng and Schmidt, Eds. (Copenhagen, Denmark, Sept. 12-16), Kluwer, Netherlands, 431-450.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  8. HAYES-ROTH,B.AND HAYES-ROTH, F. 1979. A cognitive model of planning. Cognitive Sci. 3, 275- 310.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  9. HARPER,R.AND SELLEN, A. 1995. Collaborative tools and practicalities of professional work at the International Monetary Fund. In Proceedings of the CHI '95 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Vancouver, B.C.). ACM Press, New York, NY, 122-129.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  10. HEATH,C.AND LUFF, P. 1991. Collaborative activity and technological design: Task coordination in London Underground control rooms. In Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Sept. 25-27). Bannon, Robinson and Schmidt, Eds. Kluwer, the Netherlands.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  11. HENNING,J.AND BRAGEN, M. 1994. Mobile professionals in focus. BIS Strategic Decisions.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  12. JAUREGUIBERRY, F. 2000. Mobile telecommunications and the management of time. Social Sci. Inf. (Information sur les Sciences Sociales), 39, 255-268.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  13. KRESTOFFERSEN,S.AND LJUNGBERG, F. 1999. Making place to make IT work: Empirical explorations of HCI for Mobile CSCW. In GROUP'99: Proceedings of the International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work (Phoenix, AZ, Nov. 14-17), ACMPress, NewYork, NY, 276-285.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  14. LAMMING, M., ELDRIDGE, M., FLYNN, M., JONES,C.,AND PENDLEBURRY, D. 2000. Satchel: Providing access to any document, any time, anywhere. ACM Trans. Comput.-Human Interaction, 7,3, 322-352.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  15. LUFF, P., HEATH,C.,AND GREATBATCH, D. 1992. Tasks in Interaction: Paper and screen based documentation in collaborative activity. In Proceedings of the CSCW '98 Conference on Computer- Supported Cooperative Work (Toronto, Canada), ACM Press, New York, NY, 163-170.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  16. LUFF,P.AND HEATH, C. 1998. Mobility in collaboration. In Proceedings of the CSCW '98 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. ACM Press, New York, NY, 305-314.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  17. MYNATT,E.D.,BACK, M., WANT, R., BAER, M., AND ELLISS, J. B. 1998. Designing audio aura. In Proceedings '98 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Los Angeles, CA), ACM Press, New York, NY, 566-573.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  18. O'HARA, K., PERRY, M., SELLEN,A.J.,AND BROWN, B. A. T. 2001. Exploring the relationship between mobile phone and document use during business travel. In Wireless World: Social and Interactional Implications of Wireless Technology. Brown, B., Green, N., Harper, R., Eds. Springer- Verlag.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  19. O'HARA,K.AND SELLEN, A. J. 1997. A comparison of reading paper and on-line documents. In Proceedings '97, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Atlanta, GA). ACM Press, New York, NY, 335-342.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  20. ROBINSON, M. 1993. Design for unanticipated use. In Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. De Michaelis, Simone and Schmidt, Eds. (Milan, Italy, Sept. 13-17). Kluwer, the Netherlands, 187-202.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  21. TANIS,J.AND DUFFY, F. 1999. A vision of the new workplace revisited. In Site Selection.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  22. WHITTAKER, S., FROHLICH ,D.,AND DALY-JONES, O. 1994. Informal workplace communication: What is it like and how might we support it? In Proceedings '94 Conference on Human Factors In Computing Systems. ACM Press, New York, NY, 131-137.]] Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  23. WIBERG,M.AND LJUNGBERG, F. 1999. Exploring the vision of anytime, anywhere in the context of mobile work. In Knowledge Management and Virtual Organizations, Y. Malhotra, Ed. Idea Group Publishing.]]Google ScholarGoogle Scholar

Index Terms

  1. Dealing with mobility: understanding access anytime, anywhere

                  Recommendations

                  Comments

                  Login options

                  Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

                  Sign in

                  Full Access

                  PDF Format

                  View or Download as a PDF file.

                  PDF

                  eReader

                  View online with eReader.

                  eReader