Design and Evaluation of Ambient Displays: The Bus Mobile and Daylight Display

An ambient display is a device that provides information via a user’s peripheral perception channel, differentiating it from standard output devices by not requiring a user’s full attention. In order to determine if an ambient display will influence the behavior of users of computer labs, two displays were designed and deployed. The first display, the Bus Mobile, is a mobile that hangs from the ceiling and has six bus numbers extended from it, which adjust according to the bus schedule for various lines. The second display, the Daylight Display, is a floor lamp programmed to adjust its brightness according to the sunset and sunset times. We hypothesized that the peripheral display of the time left until the next bus arrives would help bus-riding subjects optimize their logout times. Similarly, subjects preferring to depart the windowless lab before sunset might optimize their logout times based on the ambient display of sunset times. To test the prediction, the two displays were set up in computer labs without windows. The behavior of the users was determined by making surveys available before the displays were deployed, while the displays were installed, then after the displays were taken down. The login and logout times of the users were obtained from a system log will be evaluated to see how long people were actually staying in the lab. Using the data from the surveys and the analysis of the login times, it was determined that the Bus Mobile was very effective at providing information to users, and using the results of the surveys only, the Daylight Display was found to be somewhat effective