Mobile Computing in the Retail Arena

Although PDAs typically run applications in a "stand-alone" mode, they are increasingly eq uipped with wireless communications, which makes them useful in new domains. This capability for more powerful information exchange with larger information systems presents a new situated context for PDA applicati ons, and provides new design and usability evaluation challenges. In this work we examine how grocery shopping could be aided by a mobile shopping applicati on that consumers access via a PDA while in a store. The interactive relationship between the physical space of the store and the human activity of shopping are crucial when designing for this application. To better unde rstand this interaction, we studied people's grocery shopping habits, designed and evaluated prototypes, and perfor med usability tests within the shopping environment. This paper reveals our design process for this problem an d a framework for designing and evaluating situated applications for mobile handhelds