Conversation Support for Persistent Mobile Interaction Mikael Wiberg, PhD Interaction Theory Lab, Department of Informatics Umea University, 901 87 Umea, Sweden
[email protected]
Abstract In this paper we propose a 2*2 matrix as a way of pointing at two new directions for supporting persistent conversations in mobile settings. These two directions include: 1) mobile support for asynchronous and long-term conversations, as well as 2) mobile support for synchronous and short-term conversations. The research presented in this paper builds upon both empirical studies conducted of mobile work forces, as well as theoretical work on CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) for mobile settings. In this paper we also outline 7 requirements derived from our previous empirical and theoretical work. We then exemplify the two new directions proposed with two novel systems that support asynchronous and long-term conversations (i.e. the RoamWare system) and synchronous and short-term conversations (i.e. the SeamlessTalk prototype). Having exemplified the 2*2 matrix we then discuss how the two systems meet the 7 requirements identified before concluding the paper.
1
Introduction
The importance of supporting persistent conversations and sustained interaction with modern information technology has recently been widely acknowledged in the literature (e.g. Erickson, et al. 1999; Smith & Fiore, 2001; Sørencen in Braa, et al., 2000). The area is important not at least because recent empirical studies of workplace interaction (e.g. Whittaker, 1994; Wiberg, 2001) has highlighted that conversations are typically ongoing, multithreaded and dynamic in respect to its participants. Further on, the research area of persistent interaction support is important because it brings several issues of computing and interaction design into the foreground, amongst other issues these include e.g. awareness support, session management for sustained and dynamic interaction, support for seamless media switches, long-term conversations, and support for conversational status and long-term contact management (e.g. Whittaker, 2002). While support for persistent conversations has recently been widely highlighted in the literature, so has mobility and mobile IT-use been highlighted as a focal research topic. However, so far very little research has been reported on supporting persistent conversations in mobile settings. This, despite the fact that very much of our computermediated interaction takes places in mobile settings if viewing the mobile phone as a tiny computer in support of social interaction. Given this background, we have in our research been interested in supporting persistent conversations in mobile settings and this paper presents our most recent efforts made in relation to this. The research reported in this paper builds on both empirical studies conducted of mobile work forces (Wiberg, 2001) as well as theoretical work on how to develop CMC systems (Computer-Mediated Communication) for mobile settings. In this paper we propose a 2*2 matrix as a way of pointing at two new directions for supporting persistent conversations in mobile settings. These two directions include: 1) mobile support for asynchronous and long-term conversations, as well as 2) mobile support for synchronous and short-term conversations.. Having described the design of the two prototype systems we then analyze how the prototypes meet the design requirements identified, and report on some use experiences collected before concluding the paper. The paper is structured as follows: In section 2 the background and the basic motivation for our research is outlined followed by section 3 in which the research scope is defined (i.e. the proposed 2*2 matrix). Section 4 presents the overall method applied in this project followed by a summary of the requirements derived so far in our project related to supporting persistent mobile interaction (section 5). Having outlined the requirements we then present two working prototype systems in order to illustrate and exemplify the idea of supporting: 1) long-term asynchronous persistent conversations across co-located mobile meetings and dispersed online interaction (i.e. the RoamWare
system), and 2) supporting short-term synchronous persistent conversations while shifting media platform during an ongoing conversation (i.e. the SeamlessTalk prototype (Henfridsson & Lindgren, 2005; Henfridsson, et. al, 2005) (section 6). Having presented the two example systems we then discuss how the two systems meet the 7 requirements identified before concluding the paper.
2
Background
Our research is motivated by the two current and major trends within CMC (Computer mediated communication) to support 1) persistent conversations, and 2) mobility. First, the importance of supporting persistent conversations has been recently highly acknowledged in the literature (e.g. Erickson, et al. 1999; Smith & Fiore, 2001; Sørencen in Braa, et al., 2000; Bradner, et al., 1998). A persistent conversation can be defined as: “human-to-human interaction that persists for varying amounts of time, carried out over computer networks, produced by typing, speaking or other communicative means, and, unlike face-to-face conversation, leaves a digital trace, e.g. in the form of text on a computer screen, generation of sound clips, interaction logs, etc. Examples of persistent conversation systems include e.g. instant messaging, email, mailing lists, news groups, bulletin board systems, textual and graphic MUDs, chat clients, structured conversation systems, and document annotation systems.” (Erickson & Herring, 2002). Second, there has been a recent interest in issues related to mobility including both technological issues (e.g. protocols, and algorithms for mobile ad-hoc networks) as well as a growing interest in mobility issues more related to its application areas including e.g. m-commerce and support for mobile interaction. Motivated by these two trends our research focuses on supporting persistent conversations in mobile settings.
3
Research scope
In contrast to several previous studies on persistent conversation systems where the main focus has been on asynchronous conversations (see point 1 & 2. in figure 1) (e.g. Smith, et al. 2001; Whittaker, et al. 2002) we propose a 2*2 matrix (see figure 1) as an attempt to widening the scope of persistent conversation systems. As the proposed matrix illustrates we are interested in persistent conversations that are both asynchronous and synchronous in terms of interaction modality, as well as both long-term (i.e. several month long conversations) and short-term (i.e. conversations that lasts from just a couple of minutes to a few hours but might include some technical challenges to be kept undisrupted). According to this our scope and our research interests can be presented as a 2*2 matrix as illustrated in figure 1.
Figure 1. Proposed 2*2 matrix for persistent conversation systems As illustrated in figure 1 our research interest is two-folded and visualized as the two grey cells in figure 1. On the one hand we are interested in mobile support for asynchronous and long-term conversations (which will be exemplified by the RoamWare system in section 6.1, see point 2 in figure 1) and on the other hand we are interested in mobile support for synchronous and short-term conversations (which will be exemplified in section 6.2. through a description of the SeamlessTalk prototype (Henfridsson & Lindgren, 2005; Henfridsson, et. al, 2005), see point 3 in figure 1). We are also planning for an empirical study of synchronous and long-term persistent conversations (i.e.
point 4 in figure 1) that will be conducted in the beginning of 2006. In this study we will study how a decentralized group of managers at Telia (a Swedish telephone operator) keep each other continuously updated through the use of a persistent public audio session (i.e. a Microsoft Netmeeting session) as their main communication media without ever closing down the session between the offices. However, in this paper we concentrate on two projects in order to highlight and exemplify the two new directions proposed in figure 1 for mobile persistent conversation systems, i.e. 1) the focus for the RoamWare project on supporting seamless media switches in asynchronous and long-term persistent conversations including mobile meetings and online interaction and, 2) the focus for the SeamlessTalk prototype on supporting synchronous and short-term mobile phone conversations while shifting platform back and forth between a mobile phone and an in-car mobile phone/infotainment system.
4
Research method
Methodologically, our research is grounded in both ethnographic observations (Hammersly & Atkinson, 1995) and naturalistic studies (Solso, et al., 1998) of mobile work and mobile interaction (see e.g. Wiberg, 2001a) as well as theoretical work on CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) for mobile settings (see e.g. Wiberg, 2001b). We have then conducted standard HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) requirement analysis of the data to extract the requirements briefly summarized in section 5.
5
Requirements for supporting persistent mobile interaction
In this section we summarize the requirements for persistent mobile interaction as identified and presented in our previous research (i.e. Wiberg, 2001a; Wiberg, 2001b; Wiberg, 2001c; Wiberg, 2001d; Wiberg, 2001e; Wiberg, 2001f). To summarize, our requirements derived from our empirical and theoretical work include: • 1) Support for persistent mobile interaction across co-located mobile meetings and dispersed settings According to our observations made during an ethnographic study carried out at Telia Nära (a Swedish telephone operator) conversations are typically ongoing within teams and groups of collages across spontaneous co-located mobile meetings and while they are dispersed from each other where the mobile phone is the typical medium of communication (Wiberg, 2001a; Wiberg, 2001f). For a more careful description of how these requirements where identified, prioritized, and their background see e.g. Wiberg, 2001b. • 2) Ad-hoc support for implicit session initiation in mobile meetings Supporting persistent interaction across co-located mobile meetings and further online interaction enabled e.g. over the Internet requires that session initiation and connection keeping is done automatically and ad-hoc in face-to-face situations so that the conversation itself isn’t interrupted when the conversation shifts from a face-to-face conversation to a further online conversation (Wiberg, 2001c). • 3) Session management models for seamless media switches In our research we have discovered that supporting persistent mobile interaction across co-located face-to-face meetings and online dispersed interaction also requires novel session management models that can support a user in having a set of latent (although ongoing) sessions that can be easily made active for further communication, e.g. sending out a group email an hour after a lunch meeting including 14 persons without having to type in all of their addresses just for continuing the face-to-face conversation later on over email (for more details about this issue see e.g. Wiberg, 2001a; Wiberg, 2001b). Another example related to this issue is to support seamless media switches (e.g. between voice, chat, email, etc), and seamless platform switches (e.g. between a mobile phone and an in-car mobile phone for not at least safety reasons while starting to drive). • 4) Addressing techniques for easy reestablishments of face-to-face conversations in another media Related to the group email example under requirement 3 is the issue of enabling easy group addressing. Here, we discovered that spontaneous face-to-face meetings are important parts of ongoing conversations and these meetings are very dynamic in respect to the constellations of participants for each mobile meeting. Thus, a forth requirement includes dynamic addressing techniques developed to automatically collect addresses of persons present during a face-to-face meeting for easy re-establishment afterwards to continue a conversation over an online medium (e.g. in a chat room or as a mobile phone conversation).1 1
For a more detailed presentation of this issue see Wiberg, 2001d.
• 5) Support for both asynchronous and synchronous persistent mobile interaction Another lesson learned from our empirical studies of mobile work forces at Telia Nära was that people need both asynchronous (e.g. email) and synchronous (e.g. mobile phone) support for their daily communication needs (Wiberg, 2001). • 6) Inclusion of external resources As also noted by Whittaker (in press) inclusion or links to external resources associated with an ongoing online conversation is critical (e.g. links to URLs, documents, and emails sent). • 7) Visualizations of persistent conversation threads that create both shared views and provide individual support Persistent conversations leave traces. As a consequence, and as also noted by e.g. Erickson (2003) as well as Smith & Fiore (2001), persistent conversations require support for visualizing these conversational logs in rational and effective ways.
6
Two working prototype systems that exemplifies the proposed 2*2 matrix
We now describe two prototype systems (i.e. RoamWare and SeamlessTalk) that serve to exemplify the two directions proposed in figure 1, i.e. persistent conversation systems that support long-term and asynchronous interaction (i.e. RoamWare) and persistent conversation systems that support short-term and synchronous interaction (i.e. SeamlessTalk).
6.1
RoamWare – Support for long-term asynchronous persistent mobile interaction
According to the 2*2 matrix as presented in figure 1 the RoamWare system support long-term asynchronous persistent mobile interaction. RoamWare supports this kind of long-term ongoing interaction in a mobile use context including both co-located and geographically dispersed mobile collaboration. The fundamental idea behind this project was to let the conversation be in the foreground, keep the technology in the background, and just let the technology monitor activities happening in the surrounding (e.g. people entering and leaving physical or virtual meetings) and keep a personal log of these activities as to simplify for the individual to with minimal effort, almost seamlessly if possible, re-establish a face-to-face conversation in an online environment (e.g. when shifting from a lunch discussion to an afternoon online meeting including the same persons that were present during the lunch, or e.g. just send them all an email and update them about the latest project news). As an early prototype we implemented our ideas on ordinary laptops computers. Here we used IrDA (i.e. the laptops infrared port) to detect other laptops co-present in a meeting. And, based on that detection an interaction history was automatically created together with the creation of a dynamic contact list according to the ones present during the meeting. The prototype name “RoamWare” was chosen since it was considered an appropriate name for a GroupWare designed for roaming (or mobile) groups. Figure 2 describes the interface of this early RoamWare prototype in more detail. This button separates meetings by adding start/stop time to the interaction history. Interaction history showing three meetings with four selected receivers of a new message. Support for remote controlling a web presentation by another device. Comment selected meeting. Shortcut to this interaction history on the web. Click to write message to selected receivers. Editable complete list of all the group members. Presents a list of added devices, owner name and address.
Figure 2. The first version of RoamWare as implemented on laptop PCs.
However, one problem with this first RoamWare prototype had to do with the so called “line-of-sight” problem associated with IrDA (i.e. to keep an accurate record of persons present in a co-located mobile meeting everybody needs to physically aim their computer of every other computer present at the meeting for each and every time somebody is entering or leaving the meeting (which is something quite frequent during spontaneous work related interaction, e.g. conversations during coffee breaks, etc.). To tackle this problem we developed a second version of the RoamWare system. In this version the system was made more mobile as it was implemented on handheld devices instead of laptops (i.e. PocketPCs). We also had to develop some hardware (i.e. RoamWare::Radio) to be able to make node detection of other similar devices within close vicinity of the user (i.e. within a distance of 10-15 feet) over radio as to avoid the line-of sight problem associated with infrared communication between the devices using the IrDA protocol. This had to be done since there was no technology like Bluetooth available at the markets yet at this moment in our project. Figure 3 illustrates the hardware developed for the second version of RoamWare.
Figure 3. (1) Technical platform (2) Two buttons (one for on/off and one for separating different meetings) a RS232 COM port (3) Carrying case and a RS232 synchronization cable to enable transferring of the meeting data to the PocketPC device. The PocketPC then continuously receives the node detection data from the RoamWare::Radio device and, based on that data maintains an interaction history over the co-located mobile meetings had to enable easy re-establishment of the interaction over the Internet (e.g. sending group email messages) at a later time. Figure 4 illustrates the basic features available in this second version of RoamWare.
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Figure 4. (1) Note taking, (2) Interaction history with participants added through synchronization with RoamWare::Radio and chronologically ordered into meetings associated with date, time and notes taken, (3) email window illustrating how an email can be composed and sent to selected participants from the interaction history. Overall, the main advantage of the second version of RoamWare was that it constituted a fully mobile platform that enabled automatic creation of interaction histories (i.e. a log over mobile meetings as traces in the personal system log). Since this log is solely personal and only maintained in the owners own device there is no integrity problem related to the keeping of this log.
The design of RoamWare with its scrollable interaction histories rimes nicely with the following statement made by Erickson et al., (1999):. ” The fact that the conversation is persistent and shared increases the potential for accountability. Unlike chat, where conversation is ephemeral, or like mailing lists where the past becomes buried in message archives, accessing the conversation's history is just a matter of scrolling.” (Erickson, et al. 1999). But, over time, this constant and automatic creation of interaction histories also creates an overview problem. To address this problem we developed a searchable web based information visualization support called RoamLines to enable to search for and view different sets of threads of meetings over time2. Figure 5 illustrates the basic graphical design of this system.
Figure 5. The RoamLines system. As illustrated in figure 5 a search has been made about who else that has been present in meetings where also “Erik” has been one of the persons met. The search result shows that I (i.e. the one doing this search on his/her device) have had three previous meetings with, amongst others, “Erik”, and in the visualization these three meetings are arranged chronologically after each other.
6.2
SeamlessTalk – Support for short-term & synchronous persistent mobile interaction
The second system we have chosen to present here is called SeamlessTalk (Henfridsson & Lindgren, 2005; Henfridsson, et. al, 2005). This system supports short-term and synchronous conversations and is thus a good example of an alternative persistent conversation system as proposed in our 2*2 matrix (see cell 3 in figure 1). SeamlessTalk was developed in an action research project conducted at the Viktoria Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden3 (see Henfridsson and Lindgren 2005; Henfridsson et al. 2005). SeamlessTalk supports short-term and synchronous persistent mobile conversations (i.e. SeamlessTalk supports having an ongoing mobile phone conversation while approaching, driving, and leaving a car using both a mobile phone and the in-car phone system without interrupting an ongoing conversation as to allow for a persistent conversation and also maintain this conversation safely while starting to drive). The scenario to be supported by the SeamlessTalk prototype was thus about having a short-term synchronous persistent conversations including necessary media switches between a mobile phone and an in-car phone system while approaching, driving, and leaving the car. This basic idea is outlined in the following use scenario: Scenario: The driver and a friend enter the car while the driver has an ongoing call on his mobile phone. While seated, he transfers the call to the in-car phone system for convenience and safety reasons. They start driving. After a while, the conversation shifts to a conversation about personal matters. Due to privacy reasons, the driver moves 2 3
For further reading about this visualization see Wiberg, 2001c.
For more information about the SeamlessTalk prototype see: http://www.viktoria.se/page.cgi?content=groups/telematics/seamlesstalk.html&top_content=viktoria
the call from the hands-free system to the mobile phone while driving. After a couple of minutes, he terminates the call. The driver then initiates a new call using the in-car phone system. They reach their destination but the driver wants to sustain his conversation. While leaving the car, he transfers his call to the mobile phone. (Quoted from Henfridsson, et al., 2005). To realize this use scenario, the researchers worked together in close cooperation with the Swedish car industry (i.e. SAAB, Mecel and Vodafone) in an action research project to get access to the in-car infotainment system on the dashboard of the car (see figure 6). On a very general basis, the SeamlessTalk implementation includes 1) a Bluetooth equipped mobile phone. And, 2) an in-car phone system intended to provide the resources needed for enhancing the convenience and safety of car conversations. The system consists of four components: 1) dashboard control buttons, 2) a 5.8 inches screen integrated in the dashboard, 2) a microphone, and 4) an in-car audio system (see figure 6). For a more detailed description of the technical implementation of SeamlessTalk see Henfridsson, et. al, 2005.
Figure 6. The in-car mobile phone system is part of the infotainment system visible on the dashboard. To enable short-term persistent conversations while seamlessly switching between the mobile phone and the in-car phone system SeamlessTalk uses the Bluetooth SDP (service detection protocol) to automatically communicate between the mobile phone and the in-car system whenever a session is initiated. However, although the system automatically prepares for a hand-over of the conversation from one platform to the other when the Bluetooth communication is established between the mobile phone and the in-car system this is not executed before the user actively chooses to do so. In an earlier publication (see Henfridsson, et. al, 2005) we have referred to this solution as a user-controlled session management technique.
7 7.1
Use experiences The RoamWare system in use
We have conducted two evaluations of the RoamWare system in use. During the first evaluation we tested the first version of the RoamWare system both on the mobile work force observed during our empirical background study and on a team of IT researchers. Figure 7 illustrates some pictures taken during the evaluation conducted with the team of IT researchers.
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Figure 7. A co-located meeting (1) & two dispersed settings (2 &3) with RoamWare support (RoamWare version 1)
During this first evaluation the subjects were given different fictive missions that needed a lot of face-to-face meetings and coordination as well as individual work and search exercises on the Internet. The goal of this evaluations was thus to see how well the group managed to have a persistent conversation while shifting frequently between face-to-face conversations and online asynchronous interaction (i.e. email and chat correspondence via the RoamWare system). For the second evaluation we tested the second version of the RoamWare system on the same group of researchers as included in the first evaluation. This second evaluation included both a similar evaluation as in evaluation 1 and follow up interviews. Figure 8 illustrates a typical situation during this second evaluation session.
Figure 8. Mobile meeting with RoamWare support (version 2). The purpose of this second evaluation was to test of the mobility related issues of the RoamWare support (e.g. ease of use during a mobile meeting, automatic node detection, etc).
7.1.1
Results
Related to the first evaluation conducted of the RoamWare system the subjects involved in the evaluation felt that the system was good for easy re-establishment of communication with each other when moving from a face-to-face setting to a geographically dispersed more of interaction. One subject said that this technology was nice since it was not only an “anytime, anywhere” support like many other mobile services but somewhat unique since it really considered that the group was actually continuously in motion (being sometimes together and sometimes apart). One a drawback reported with the first version of RoamWare was that the laptops draw too much attention away from the face-to-face interaction. This problem is nicely illustrated in figure 6 above where only one person is looking up from the screen when the picture was taken. However, during the second evaluation of RoamWare where the second version of RoamWare was in focus this issue was less relevant. As illustrated in figure 8 this was a more typical situation in that the participants in a mobile meeting focused more on each other than on their mobile device. The reason for this was, according to the subjects involved in the evaluation that: 1) a PDA in general is more accepted in meetings than a big laptop, 2) PDAs has smaller screen making them harder to use while having an ongoing conversation, and 3) the input capabilities on a PDA is rather limited making it hard to operate while speaking to somebody at the same time. These factors together thus create a quite big barrier to discretely use a PDA while being engaged in a face to-face conversation. During the second evaluation it was further noticed that range of the radio is limited when it comes to automatically detect if somebody belongs to a meeting or not. Here, it was suggested that additional parameters like group membership, formal group mailing lists, time, etc could be used as variables in combination with radio range to make the interaction history more accurate in relation to who were actually present during a meeting.
7.2
The SeamlessTalk system in use
The SeamlessTalk prototype was evaluated over a 2-month period (November 2003 to January 2004), and the evaluation involved five SeamlessTalk-equipped Saab 9-3 cars and six respondents (Henfridsson & Lindgren, 2005). On a general level its users found the system very useful and the empirical study further revealed that the system can
improve the convenience of people’ s everyday mobile device use. For a more detailed description of the empirical user study see Henfridsson & Lindgren, 2005.
8
How the two systems meet the requirements identified
In this section we discuss to what extent the two prototype systems RoamWare and SeamlessTalk that was chosen to exemplify the gray cells in the proposed 2*2 matrix in figure 1 meet the requirements outlined in section 5. • 1) Support for persistent mobile interaction across co-located and dispersed settings To this date the RoamWare system supports continuation of a mobile meeting as a group email conversation. Here, different forms of media for the continuation of the conversation might be valuable (e.g. support for telephone conferencing, video conferencing, chat rooms, etc) and we think that the development of SeamlessTalk is a first step in that direction in that it supports continuation of spoken conversations. • 2) Ad-hoc support for implicit session initiation in mobile meetings The second version of RoamWare supports this ad-hoc control over other RoamWare devices co-present during a mobile meeting. • 3) Session management models for seamless media switches The SeamlessTalk system supports this requirement in that it supports easy, and user-controlled, transfers of mobile phone calls to and from the in-car phone system. • 4) Addressing techniques for easy reestablishments of face-to-face conversations in another media Both version 1 and version 2 of the RoamWare system supports this continuation of a face-to-face conversation including several person as an group email correspondence by dynamically creating the address lists needed to continue the conversation online. With this list the user does not need to know about other participants email addresses in a face-to-face meeting to be able to continue a face-to-face discussion in an online forum since the RoamWare::Radio device collects this information automatically from other co-present RoamWare devices. • 5) Support for both asynchronous and synchronous persistent mobile interaction RoamWare support asynchronous persistent mobile interaction and the SeamlessTalk system support synchronous persistent mobile interaction. • 6) Inclusion of external resources RoamWare supports this requirement by allowing the user to add URLs found on the Internet directly to the interaction history continuously created. Further on, the SeamlessTalk system also supports this requirement by inclusion of the external resources available when driving (i.e. the car speakers and in-car microphone to enhance the safety aspect of having a conversation while driving). • 7) Visualizations of persistent conversation threads that create both shared views and provide individual support The RoamLines visualization (see figure 5) supports this requirement partially by enabling searches and visualizations of the individual’s interaction history. However, so far we have not explored support for shared views of several interaction histories. Overall, the two prototype systems meet several of the requirements identified. However, and as also outlined in this section, there are still many issues not fully addressed yet in the design of RoamWare and SeamlessTalk. Still, we think that these two systems are two really good examples of alternative persistent conversation systems that illustrate two new possible directions for future persistent conversation systems as presented in figure 1.
9
Conclusion
In this paper we have proposed a 2*2 matrix as a way of pointing at two new directions for supporting persistent conversations in mobile settings. These two directions include: 1) mobile support for asynchronous and long-term conversations, as well as 2) mobile support for synchronous and short-term conversations. In contrast to several previous studies on persistent conversations where the main focus has been on asynchronous long-term conversations our research has taken on a wider scope in that we are interested in persistent conversations that are both synchronous and asynchronous in terms of interaction modality, as well as both long-term (i.e. several month long conversations) and short-term (i.e. conversations that lasts from just a couple of minutes to a few hours but might include some technical challenges to a kept undisrupted). With this broader scope in mind we have identified 7 requirements to be meet by systems designed to support persistent mobile interaction. We have then presented two
systems that illustrate and exemplifies the idea of supporting: 1) long-term and asynchronous persistent conversations (i.e. the RoamWare system), and 2) short-term and synchronous persistent conversations (i.e. the SeamlessTalk system) as proposed in the 2*2 matrix. When it comes to future work we believe that on an empirical level, some work is needed to carefully study longterm asynchronous interaction. Such an empirical study is planned to be carried out during the autumn of 2005. We are also planning for an empirical study of synchronous and long-term persistent conversations that will be conducted in the beginning of 2006. In this study we will study how a decentralized group of managers at Telia keep each other continuously updated through the use of a persistent public audio session as their main communication media. Further on, we believe that on a technical level, some work is needed on how to design these two systems as one single, but fully integrated system, and how to support easy switches between different conversational modes. Finally, and on a theoretical level, we think that some work is needed to develop general models and concepts that could guide the design of conversation support for persistent mobile interaction.
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