Through the Glance Mug: A Familiar Artefact to Support Opportunistic Search in Meetings

Abstract

During collocated meetings, the spontaneous need for information, called opportunistic search, might arise while conversing. However, using smartphones to look up information might be disruptive, disrespectful or even embarrassing in social contexts. We propose an alternative instrument for this practice: Glance Mug, a touch-sensitive mug prototype that listens to the conversation and displays browsable content-driven results on its inner screen. We organized 15 pairs of one-to-one meetings between students to gather user reflections. The user study revealed that the mug has the potential for supporting instant search and affords sufficient subtlety to conceal user actions. Yet, it provoked some anxiety for the users in maintaining eye contact with their partners. Our main contributions are the context-aware mug concept tested in a real-life setting and the analysis through Hornecker and Buur's Tangible Interaction Framework that discusses its design space, and its impact on the users and social interaction.