AROMA: abstract representation of presence supporting mutual awareness

Abstract

The AROMA project is exploring the kind of awareness that people effortless are able to maintain about other beings who are located physically close.We are designing technology that attempts to mediate a similar kind of awareness among people who are geographically dispersed but want to stay better in touch.AROMA technology can be thought of as a stand-alone communication device or -more likely --an augmentation of existing technologies such as the telephone or full-blown media spaces.Our approach differs from other recent designs for awareness (a) by choosing pure abstract representations on the display site, (b) by possibly remapping the signal across media between capture and display, and, finally, (c) by explicitly extending the application domain to include more than the working life, to embrace social interaction in general.We are building a series of prototypes to learn if abstract representation of activity data does indeed convey a sense of remote presence and does so in a sutTiciently subdued manner to allow the user to concentrate on his or her main activity.We have done some initial testing of the technical feasibility of our designs.What still remains is an extensive effort of designing a symbolic language of remote presence, done in parallel with studies of how people will connect and communicate through such a language as they live with the AROMA system.