Project Battuta: User Interface Design for a Wearable Field Computer

Project Battuta, a joint Digital Government Initiative project being conducted by Iowa State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been working on integrating heterogeneous geospatial information resources using flexible architectures for adaptive data collection in mobile environments (Nusser et al., 1999). One of our mobile computing environment is a prototype wearable computer, under development at UCSB. Version 2 of this system is now being developed, including two new components: (1) a mobile internet connection and (2) a prototype graphical user interface. It is our goal to implement the GUI, and then conduct users tests to investigate the preferred display types, modes, and interactions necessary for effective use the system in the field. This poster presents some early results and design decisions. In the wearable computer paradigm, the computer is contained in the user’s clothing, and the input and output devices interact with the normal motions and senses of the human body, including normal vision. As such, wearable computers offer two great field use advantages. First, the system can present a field user user with cartographic information in real time. When this information is placed into the vision field, it is a form of augmented reality. Secondly, the system can take advantage of distributed networks to retrieve map and image data for display based on the position of the user. This location-basis for information selection and retreival is the most basic, and maybe the most powerful form of context awareness for ubiquitous computing. Literature on wearable and mobile computing dates back less than a decade (Gold, 1993). Several technology surveys have considered the field, and a series of conferences has been held to assist progress in the area, including the International Symposium on Wearable Computers (http://iswc.gatech.edu/). A comprehensive bibliography covering the early meetings, and a host of workshops and seminars is available at the University of Lancaster in the UK (Lancaster University, 1996), and the history is summarized as a timeline at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, 1999). Much research on ubiquitous computers is available, with a literature guide at http:// www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/knowledge_base/wearable.html. Most work examines the perception and measurement of context awareness, that is what a wearable user can detect within the real and virtual environment. Azuma (1997) surveyed augmented reality applications. Billingshurst (1998) and Beadle et al. (1997) have surveyed locational applications.