Crossmodal Attention in Public-Private Displays

Striking a balance between the public visibility of a display, and the ease with which individuals have access to information, is a key challenge for the developers of interfaces to pervasive services. In this paper we utilize the cognitive phenomenon of crossmodal attention as a means of providing users with personalized cues to content on public displays. We describe two prototype applications that use crossmodal cues to temporally multiplex publicly visible information: CrossFlow, an ambient navigation system; and CrossBoard, a dense multiuser public information display. We outline the results of pilot preliminary user studies and describe the infrastructure required to support crossmodal displays