<title>The unbearable lightness of being there: contrasting approaches to presence engineering</title>

Abstract

The emergence and proliferation of email, mobile communication devices, internet chatrooms, shared virtual environments, advanced tele-conferencing platforms and other telecommunication systems underline the importance of developing measurement methods that are sensitive to the human experience with these systems. In this paper, we discuss the concepts of social presence and connectedness as complementary notions, each relating to a different set of media properties that serve distinct communication needs. We aim to broaden the scope of current presence technologies and applications, illustrating the various factors that play a role in establishing, enhancing, and enriching the experience of human connectedness through communication media. Based on existing literature, we discuss a number of user requirements for home communication and awareness systems. To make these ideas tangible, we finish the paper by briefly discussing the ASTRA project as a case study in designing and evaluating an awareness system for the home.