Ambient Life: Calm and Excited Pulsation as a Means of Life-like Permanent Tactile Status Display in Mobile Phones

In this paper we present Ambient Life, a novel notification system for mobile phones. It is based on a cognitive mechanism that humans are inherently good at: the perception of life. The proposed system employs basic life-like movements, like breath and pulse, to display the state of a mobile phone. The phone can either be “calm” (representing no missed calls, SMS or similar) or “excited” (representing missed events, requiring attention). Two prototypes and a user study are presented. The outcomes of the study are mixed; while most users generally liked the idea of a living phone and were able to determine changes in the pulse frequency almost instantly, the acceptance of the new functionality depended strongly on the situation the phone was used in