As ethnographic researchers at Intel, we explore many aspects of people's relationships with technology, particularly aspects that are not well understood or well supported. I've been working on a series of projects that focus on people's relationships to technology infrastructures, and how public and private domains come together as these infrastructures are actually used in everyday life. One project, a collaboration with Michele Chang and Ken Anderson, colleagues in the People and Practices Research Group, looked at people living "off the grid" in some sense. We considered considering various examples of communities or individuals who wanted to "disconnect" in some way from a ubiquitous technology infrastructure, from homeschoolers (think of the public school system as a kind of technology infrastructure), to people who literally lived off the power grid.

In the cases we studied, people wanted to disconnect primarily in order to gain more control over their environment and their lives. In some cases, they wanted to disconnect from technology to keep themselves from being tempted by technology. The people who were generating their own electricity, for instance, liked the fact that not having electricity forced them to live a lifestyle that they wanted to live but probably wouldn't if electricity were available. They actually seek out constraints; they are trying to live intentionally. I think that's one interesting focus for future technology research-the potential to create a variety of systems to enable people to monitor their own behavior, and to reflect on their lives and whether they're going in the direction they want. The study also highlighted the need and opportunity for ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") technologies to provide a sense of ownership and empowerment to users.

More recently, I've been working on a follow-up study of young professionals in three global cities-London, Tokyo and Los Angeles-that was also a collaboration with Michele Chang and Ken Anderson. We wondered whether these obviously quite different global cities are actually similar enough in certain key respects that you could design similar types of ubicomp technologies for them. Unlike the "off the grid" study, this project focused on the mainstream-the people for whom, in some sense, major cities are designed, with the ubicomp idea of having everything in the environment, so you don't have to carry anything with you. (This is in contrast to some notions of wearable computing, which suggests that you're in a hostile environment and you'd better have everything on your person, to protect yourself.)

In the follow-up study, we followed the same young professionals for a period of time, and studied everything they carry with them-what we call their "mobile kits." We focused on how they use those items in their wallets, purses and pockets to access people, places and services in the urban environment, using various urban interfaces.

Our research results, which were published at Ubicomp 2005, revealed that across all three cities, there are remarkable similarities in the practices of urban interfacing. While there are cultural differences, the young professionals in each city have many shared expectations and experiences. This suggests that we might be able to develop ubiquitous computing systems that could address a range of urban issues that are common to many, if not all, major world cities. Among other findings, we discovered that if we could embed technology in the environment, we might be able to reduce a set of burdens currently faced by people in these global cities around the ever-expanding mobile kits they have to carry, maintain, and constantly check (e.g., do I have my cell phone, wallet, keys, etc. when I set out?).

My most recent work, a collaboration with Allison Woodruff of Intel Research Berkeley, focused on "great rooms" in American homes, another kind of everyday infrastructure that brings together public and private realms. The prototypical great room is a multifunctional space that combines a family room, dining area, and kitchen, in a spacious open plan (often with a cathedral ceiling). We're interested in how these rooms came to be in "modern" American homes, how they are used, why people like or dislike them, and how technology-particularly wirelessly connected laptop computers-fits into them.

We found that many aspects of great rooms were highly valued, such as luxurious spaciousness, socialness, and a level of unclutteredness enforced in some sense by their relatively "public" location within the home. But we also found that other aspects caused concern, such as wastefulness (e.g., in the energy it takes to heat and cool the rooms) and uncertainty over how they should be used and what sorts of rules apply (e.g., rules like "don't eat on the couch" might be happily ignored if the rule maker happened to be away!).

The relationship of technology to these spaces was similarly tentative and mixed. Wireless laptops allowed family members to work without being isolated from one another, but it could also threaten to turn great rooms into workplaces, which they were never intended to be (unlike home offices) and aren't primarily valued for. We expect to see conflicts played out in the future over how much people should allow the workplace to enter the home. The great room could be a focal point for the debate.

A paper summarizing our approach and interest in great rooms was published at the inaugural EPIC conference [Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference] in November 2005, jointly organized by social scientists at Intel and Microsoft. The great room is just one example of a multipurpose space that's both private and public. The research could evolve to focus on other scales of spaces, and on different cultures.

The overall objective of all these research projects is to identify new opportunities to make technology that delights and serves all kinds of people in their everyday lives. By gaining a deep understanding of how people live and work, we want to help ensure that future technologies will meet the real needs and aspirations of people.