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Beyond the Web
- Design of everyday technology.

This is a compiled summary of my main research projects. I hope you find the discriptions, and the ideas, inspiring.

Archive - Index

Naturens Hus
CoDesk
AtWork
VideoCafe
Smart Things
Emotional Communication
comHOME
BrainBall
Sense and Sensations

Naturens Hus (1990 - 1991)

The “Naturens Hus Multimedia Project” was a project that explored the use of multimedia for advanced education. This project was a collaboration between Naturens Hus (A museum for environmental issues), KTH (The Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm University, Apple and AviCom (a media company in Stockholm). The core idea in the project was to develop an external workshop that could facilitate a learning environment for multimedia productions. As such we organized seminaries and courses as well as build a couple of multimedia installations.

MultiG (1991 - 1994)
The MultiG research programme was an effort conducted in broad cooperation between academia and industry with a interest towards study novel applications and Gigabit networking concepts. The spirit of the program is similar to the spirit of the Gigabit research part of the US NREN effort. My primary task was to explore and build a novel CSCW-environment, the KnowledgeNet, and its user interface, the Collaborative Desktop.

COMIC (1993 - 1995)
Within the Esprite Basic Research project COMIC (University of Manchester, Nottingham, Lancaster, Risoo, Milano, Barcelona and GMD in Bonn) did I study CSCW related issues from two different sides. From a social point of view I did study how to capture and represent organisational context in CSCW systems. I was also involved in technical matters such as development of object oriented models for CSCW support, the COMIC Shared Object Server.

CoDesk (1992 - 1994)

The CoDesk project was my first case-study for my Ph.D. thesis. The Collaborative Desktop is an extension of the traditional desktop model with CSCW support. In addition to normal desktop objects you will also find member objects (representing people that you would like to work with) and room objects (environments for cooperation and work). The idea is hence that CoDesk should not be regarded as a specific CSCW application, but as ‘a basic environment for CSCW’, an extension of the traditional desktop model with CSCW support. The CoDesk system was developed through co-operative design methods, like paper mock-ups, videos and software prototypes. The CoDesk system was build at IPLab / KTH.

/ CHI’94 - Tollmar, Sundblad and Marmolin 1994 /

AtWork (1995 - 1996)

The AtWork system is a web-based information system that enables a highly flexible work style while still maintaining social awareness among groups of working professionals. Through various communication mechanisms are people connected to the AtWork community able to inform as well as reach each other. The design of the AtWork mixed cooperative design with ethnographic studies to balance transient and traditional work practices. This approach becomes one of the key results from this study, i.e. how to combine traditional and new communication media to advocate new practice while still support current practice. We have labeled this design practice as – dual-purpose design. The AtWork system was developed at IPLab / KTH.

/ CSCW’96 - Tollmar, Sandor and Schömer 1996 /

VideoCafe (1996 - 1998)

The VideoCafé is an installation of a media space between two research groups, one at KTH-CID and the other at Ericsson Media Lab. Our main objective has been to develop the VideoCafé so it could connect people in physically separate locations at places that are suitable for social and work-related conversations. In this respect, we can capitalize on the existing ‘social architecture’ at the sites we have been working on – those places to which visitors have ready access and which form the sites where the social exchange is ‘at-ease’. The VideoCafé system was build in a close loop with the users of the system and eight different setting was tested through the project. This reflective design of the VideoCafé environment allowed us to collect and store different experiences that we could implement later in our next generation of prototypes. This design approach did we labeled as ‘design-in-use’.

/ BIT – Tollmar et al. /

Smart Things (1997- 1999)

The primary goal with the project “Smart things and Environments” (Centre for User Oriented IT Design at the Royal Institute of Technology) was to: ”Activate the world” by providing small, smart computing devices that could melt into our environments to support us in our everyday life. This kind of applications was (and still are) of great interest in the research community as well as in industry. However it was our opinion that many of these, although highly imaginative, projects have tended not to include user involvement and assessment of the different prototypes that have been demonstrated. The CID ”Smart things in Smart Environments” project started hence with the goal of being able to differ from past research programmes by incorporating user-oriented research and design methodology as our principal research directives. This work formed the basis for the establishments of the Smart Studio at Interactive Institute.

/ Designjournalen /

Emotional Communication (1999 - 2001)

New media for simple emotional communication between family members and close friends is a theme that has inspired the project Emotional Communication. To understand how new forms of communication can be used and how they affect the family's social life is a very important part of this project based on the user-oriented study Virtually Living Together. From this, several small projects have developed, all dealing with questions of finding subtle and different forms of communication as a compliment to the more particular audio-visually based communication we normally use. The Emotional Communication project was performed at CID / KTH and Smart Studio / Interactive Institute

/ DIS’2000 - Tollmar, Junestrand & Torgny 2000 /
/ NordiCHI 2002 - Tollmar and Persson 2002 /

comHOME (1998 - 2000)

The work with comHOME, a smart home of the future, started as a collaboration with CID/KTH, Smart Studio/Interactive Institute, Telia S-Lab, Ericsson Medialab and T.A.C. The residence works as a full-scale model as well as a showroom located at Telia Networks in Fasta, Stockholm. The comHOME project has its origin in a number of scenarios developed in workshops and group discussions. One of the key issues of study in the comHOME project was how to integrate new communication media into the domestic space from both an architectural as well as technology perspective.

/ CoBuild'98 - Tollmar and Junestrand /
/ CoBuild'99 - Junestrand and Tollmar /
/ CHI 2000 - Junestrand, Lenman, Thuresson and Tollmar /

BrainBal (1999 - )

Brainball is a game, a piece of artwork and a research project about new methods of interaction between human and machines using biosensors. The result is similar to a traditional two-player game, where intelligence and activity determine the result. However, Brainball turns traditional concepts on their heads. In Brainball, relaxation and not activity is the winning criterion. Brainball was a collaborative project at the Smart Studio/Interactive Institute.

/ Brainball – II ref /

SenSen (1999 - 2001)

The collaborative project Sense & Sensation (SENSEN) is a collaboration between the Interactive Institute (II) in Stockholm, Sweden, the MIT AI-Lab (AI) in Boston, Ma, USA, and a number of industrial partners. The aim of the project is to develop a research framework in the area of vision-based perceptual interfaces that allows a computer user to interact with the computer without having to use the normal keyboard and mouse. With these interfaces, the computer can interpret the user’s context, gestures, gaze, body movements and voice commands.

The approach in the SENSEN project is to combine the aesthetic design skills from The Interactive Institute and technology expertise from MIT AI-Lab, in order to create a unique context, from which new ideas may evolve. Our main objective is twofold: Firstly, we want to demonstrate that computer vision is useful and provide a robust modality within areas such as reactive environments and ubiquitous computing. We believe that computer vision is about to become a modality in human-computer interaction in a variety of areas, such as: portable devices, mobile robotics, reactive environments and smart objects. Secondly, by using our skills in design and technology, we want to explore how integrated vision based perceptual interfaces can lead to radically new interfaces and designs in everyday technology.

/ ref ii – sensen /

VideoCafe