On the design of personal & communal large information scale appliances

As large displays become less expensive and more common throughout our working environments, we believe they will become pervasive, much as telephones were the ubiquitous communication devices of the previous generation. When large displays are coupled to an authentication device (e.g., a badge reader) and put on a network, they permit very rapid personal content access. The BlueBoard project explores the design of large displays that can be used as temporary personal access points to personalized content, yet also be used as display surfaces for small groups of people who want to easily share content between themselves. We’ve developed several design points that make BlueBoards simple for individual and small group use - (1) p-cons to refer to a person for information access and exchange, (2) assuring users that information displayed on a BlueBoard is truly transient, (3) providing a basic set of tools for immediate walk-up use, and (4) giving the BlueBoard a sense of where it’s located for contextually appropriate information display. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2001.