Analyzing social interactions in a mobile computing environment and application to agent communication service: Experiments under the ICMAS'96 mobile assistant project

Expectations for communication services in a mobile environment grow with the spread of portable computers and cellular telephones. However, knowledge of users' behavior in a mobile environment is necessary to judge the constraints imposed on users, and functions that agents must offer to users. The authors provided a variety of mobile services (not only conventional e-mail but also information guides related to conference schedule, area, and so on) to more than 100 participants of an international conference through portable terminals and mobile telephones; in so doing, massive usage data were acquired. These usage data were compared to those of commercial services using the same terminals, and mobile computing usage proved to be clearly reflective of users' everyday activity patterns. The following facts that were revealed should be taken into account when designing information services under mobile environment. (1) A remarkable trade-off exists between frequency of access to server, and size of data downloaded to terminals. (2) Impatient users are likely to cancel data acquisition, or to terminate communications. Proceeding from the obtained results, the following functions were shown to be necessary for agents in mobile environment: (1) distribution of information between server and terminals; (2) technological and psychological measures to encourage users to employ server connections. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Syst Comp Jpn, 32(7): 62–70, 2001