mocca

client:
fabasoft ag
design team:
r.greger,
t.haberfellner,
n.pridun,
p.purgathofer,
c.rupp,
j.spangl
(tuwien/igw)

mocca is a pilot project to show the possibilities for mobile computing in the context of conferences. it was developed for the FabaSoft-Design-Pattern conference. at the opening visitors would get a "pda" with information about the conference and new tools to communicate more efficiently with other participants. the focus was to unobtrusively assist the participants in usual conference situations [take + organize notes, annotate presentations, exchange info, chat ...] without taking center stage.

although pda's are commonly designed to interact with a pen many users still try to get away with their fingers – and run into difficulties. our approach was to let the user control the mocca-pda with the thumb of the hand which is holding it.
we therefor divided the screen into different horizontal areas, each with a certain functionality of the software, which could be [both visually + functionally] resized by "kneading" the fuzzy border with the thumb or with predefined hardware-buttons.

the 3-days-conference is attended by a diverse public with an inhomogenious attraction to a pda. so the device had to be fun, intuitively usable and the benefits immediately obvious - both for tech afficianados and pda-beginners.

_all avaible functionalities are overviewable + reachable at any time
_simple interaction vocabulary, even for complex functionality
_use your thumb instead of the stylus

mocca assists the speaker, the moderator and the participants both during the presentation and the following discussion. participants can annotate right on the slide and even place requests to speak to this subject. once he is next to speak he gets feedback via mocca and the possibility to revoke his request. he will then use the mocca-pda as a microphone so that everbody in the audience can listen to his statement. everybody else can view relevant information of the speaking person [eg name, affiliation ...] on their mocca-pda.