The importance of translucence in mobile computing systems

Mobile computing has been an active area of research for the past decade, but its importance will increase substantially in the decade to come. One problem faced by designers of mobile systems is that of maintaining the illusion of connectivity even when network performance is poor or nonexistent. The Coda file system uses its cache to maintain this illusion. Extensive experience with the system suggests that, although users find the functionality provided by the system extremely valuable, new users face an arduous learning curve and even experienced users are sometimes confused by the system’s behavior. The fundamental problem is that the lack of a strong network connection causes the system to violate a key property of caching: transparency. To overcome this problem, we have built an interface, called the CodaConsole, that makes caching translucent to users through controlled exposure of cache management internals. The interface exposes critical aspects of caching to support the mobile user while hiding noncritical details to preserve usability. This article presents the design, implementation, and usability evaluation of this interface. The CodaConsole successfully makes caching translucent in the presence of disconnected or weakly connected operation. The most surprising result was that novice Coda users performed almost as well as experienced Coda users