Höök and her research team at the Mobile Life Center, part of Stockholm University, are studying the future of mobile and ubiquitous services. They are developing ideas for a new wave of mobile services that look past usability and focus instead on the user experience.
The future, as Höök sees it, will be driven by mobile technology. She predicts that a new wave of user-oriented mobile services will reshape society much like the internet has over the past decade.
“Mobile technology will have even more of a profound effect than internet and wireless technology because it influences every aspect of our lives,” she says. “We do not only put our mobiles on our desks, but carry them everywhere. In a way, they have become an extension of ourselves.”
The first generation of mobile technology in use today allows people to stay connected while on the move. But the mobile services of the future will offer much more than that – they will allow people to engage both physically and emotionally in their environment at any particular moment, Höök says.
That’s why the Center’s research focuses on the user experience – a term that has been gaining popularity as suppliers and operators move away from the concept of usability. Höök believes that emotions and the feelings of pleasure, excitement or happiness we can get from interacting with mobile devices will drive the evolution of mobile services. But in order to evolve, Höök says that researchers must first understand the patterns of mobile life.
“You need to know what people are doing,” she says. “You need to understand their habits and what they think. Then you can innovate with that information in mind.”
Höök has always been interested in the relationship between humans and computers. She studied computer science at Uppsala University in Sweden and is a professor in human-machine interaction at the department of Computer and Systems Sciences, which is part of both Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology. She is also well-known for her work with social navigation, a concept that entails making social trails visible in information spaces.
Most of the research the center performs is five to 10 years ahead of what is really happening within the telecoms world. Often, the technology to support the services the center would like to develop doesn’t exist yet. It is then up to the industry to develop the technology to support the services, she says.
And that’s why Höök believes exploring the possibilities is useful. She says: “That’s how I view what we do. We push the limits and try to show the possibilities before they exist.”
Mobile Life Center
The Mobile Life Centre at Stockholm University in Kista, Sweden, performs research into mobile services and ubiquitous computing. The center works with local research organizations such as SICS and the Interactive Institute. Research focuses on consumer-oriented mobile and ubiquitous services spanning areas from entertainment and socialization to work and society. It has major partners from the IT and telecom industry, including Ericsson Research, TeliaSonera, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft Research Ltd. The centre is funded by VINNOVA on a 10-year grant, which started in 2007.
Ericsson
Ericsson Research is a partner in the Mobile Life Center. The collaboration takes various forms: writing joint papers, having Mobile Life researchers on internships at Ericsson, and working together in the Mobile Life projects. It has proven to be a very flexible set-up where new ideas are thought out together and small, focused research activities are initiated.
Kristina Höök
Kristina Höök is the head of the Mobile Life Center and a Professor in Human-Machine Interaction in the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, which is part of both Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Höök has published more than 50 scientific papers in journals such as ToCHI, IJHCS, Interactions, and AI Communications. She has co-edited two books on social navigation and written a range of book chapters and popular science descriptions. She has won numerous awards for her work.
