To Replicate or Not to Replicate?

Abstract

To replicate or not to replicate experiments and studies seems to be a burning question in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community. This question is equally relevant to the field of mobile computing, where researchers face unique challenges when attempting to replicate studies of mobile device usage in the field. Some of those challenges are inherent in conducting such studies to understand complex socio-technical systems, which involve different technologies and diverse populations of users from different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. However, those same challenges point to a great opportunity to expand our knowledge of how people use and interact with their mobile devices and understand how those interactions evolve over time.