Opportunities and challenges for cross-device interactions in the wild

People are increasingly using multiple computing devices in their daily lives as portals into a shared online information space.We can select devices based on their form factor and affordances to match our task and context of use.Moreover, we are often using multiple devices at once, for example when sharing content, playing games, controlling other devices such as a smart TV, or collaboratively editing and presenting content in a meeting.The seamless use of multiple devices to work toward achieving the same goal is known as cross-device interaction.Cross-device interaction opens up new opportunities for how we interact with digital technology, but it also presents several fundamental challenges.To uncover some of these challenges, problems, and opportunities with cross-device interaction, we organized the well-attended Cross-Surface workshop series (http://www.cross-surface.com/).We discussed how such technologies could be used in the wild, supporting new domains and use cases at ACM Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS) 2015 [1]; how we could move away from Weiser's vision of ubiquitous devices to a "bring your own device" approach at CHI 2016 [2]; and finally, how space and spatial relations between people and devices could be used to support better device awareness at ACM Interactive Spaces and Surfaces (ISS) 2016 [3].In 1991, Mark Weiser outlined his vision for ubiquitous computing [4], in which people interact with multiple computing devices in different form factors.In his vision, people have ready access to a plethora of devices to pick up and use seamlessly, allowing them to interact with content through cross-device interactions.This work accelerated academic research into providing new technologies, conceptual models, and interaction techniques that support interactions across device ecologies [5,6].However, despite the availability of such a range of devices, technologies, and techniques, has this vision of cross-device ecologies really materialized?Weiser introduced three types of devices: inch-scale pads (similar to today's smartphones), footscale pads (similar to today's tablets), and yard-scale boards (similar to today's large displays).Two decades later, this aspect of Weiser's vision concerning interaction with multiple devices in What's Next?Cross-device interaction is an exciting new area that has seen increased focus from both the research community and industry.Enabling interaction across many devices provides opportunities and potential benefits for application domains such as education, healthcare, and business.However, in practice, interacting across devices is challenging and often not possible.To move forward in cross-device interaction, we need to bridge the gap between the messiness and chaos of real-world ubiquitous computing [7] and the ideal of cross-device interaction and interacting across many different devices.More work is needed to explore in-the-wild use of cross-device ubiquitous computing systems.The seven challenges and opportunities we outlined here open up new and exciting avenues for research

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• Understanding college students’ cross-device learning behavior in the wild

  Open Access•Qingchuan Li, Xu Zhao et al.•Computers & Education•2025

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• The Computer for the 21st Century

  Mark Weiser•Scientific American•1991

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• Featurewhen users "do" the Ubicomp

  Open Access•Antti Oulasvirta•interactions•2008

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