Abstract
Today, people use multiple devices to fulfill their information needs.
However, designers design each device individually, without accounting for the
other devices that users may also use. In many cases, the applications on all
these devices are designed to be functional replicates of each other. We argue
that this results in an over-reliance on data synchronization across devices,
version control nightmares, and increased burden of file management. In this
paper, we present the idea of a personal information ecosystem, an
analogy to biological ecosystems, which allows us to discuss the
inter-relationships among these devices to fulfill the information needs of the
user. There is a need for designers to design devices as part of a complete
ecosystem, not as independent devices that simply share data replicated across
them. To help us understand this domain and to facilitate the dialogue and
study of such systems, we present the terminology, classifications of the
interdependencies among different devices, and resulting implications for
design.
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