Communication, with and through wearable computers

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents research on wearable computers and their usage in communication. The wearable computer is looked upon as a tool for communication between people but also on how it can be used in communication with the environment. A wearable computer has been built with ordinary computer parts and devices available in well-equipped computer stores. This wearable computer is used in this thesis and has both video and audio capabilities and wireless network for communication with people and equipment over distance. The setup has then been used to study the effect of using wearable computer in activities involving communication with people and other equipment. This thesis presents some ways that a wearable computer can be used when considering communication. The user can become a beacon of knowledge sharing the knowledge of people connected to her through the network with people that are collocated with her. She could also become a tool for other people to explore and experience places where they are not located at the moment so called telepresence. It could be said that this is possible with equipment that is available today, but what differences the usage of wearable computer is the possibility to do these activities while still being active in what happens around the user. As the wearable computer should be easy to wear and interact with, the roll as a knowledge beacon or telepresence provider can become almost invisible for the user and other collocated people. To make these rolls as invisible as possible great care must be taken into the interaction between the wearable computer and the user, but also the interaction the user does through the wearable computer with other equipment. When being active as one or both of these rolls the user will mostly be involved in tasks that do not directly involve the wearable computer. When the wearable computer then needs the attention of the user it may have to interrupt the user's current task. This interruption should be done so that the decrease in performance of the user can be kept to a minimum. It is also of equal importance not to only consider the performance but also the experienced stress, which should also be kept to a minimum. A user study is presented in this thesis that explores some of the possible ways to interrupt a wearable computer and analyses what way is preferred when considering both objective and subjective data. In this thesis a novel interaction method called "Eventcasting" is also presented to decrease the time needed to focus on the wearable computer when doing simple tasks with the environment. This is so that interruption on the primary task can be even more minimized and the rolls as a knowledge beacon and telepresence provider can be as invisible as possible.