Always-on information: services and applications on the mobile desktop

We conducted a study to the topic of this active idle screen (AIS) with regards to the services users prefer. To this end, we employed card-sorting techniques for predefined services and applications with personalization and customization aspects, followed by specific brainstorming to generate additional ideas. To evaluate in which specific contexts participants would prefer to use selected services, we employed a semi-closed card-sorting technique ('context-card-sort'), where we defined five basic contexts as group headings but allowed for changes or updates of the groups where the user would need or miss specific elements. In a second step, the users created their own 'active idle screen' and three navigation concepts for the AIS were presented to the users. In a short task-based study, users explored the four concepts using paper prototypes and reflected on them as to which would appeal most to them. Participants felt mainly attached to their own heavily personalized design where exactly those services were included that they missed, and otherwise chose concepts that they knew as opposed to alternative ones that provided more playful experience.