Understanding human-battery interaction on mobile phones

Mobile phone users have to deal with limited battery lifetime through a reciprocal process we call human-battery interaction (HBI). We conducted three user studies in order to understand HBI and discover the problems in existing mobile phone designs. The studies include a large-scale international survey, a onemonth field data collection including quantitative battery logging and qualitative inquiries from ten mobile phone users, and structured interviews with twenty additional mobile phone users. We evaluated various aspects of HBI, including charging behavior, battery indicators, user interfaces for power-saving settings, user knowledge, and user reaction. We find that mobile phone users can be categorized into two types regarding HBI and often have inadequate knowledge regarding phone power characteristics. We provide qualitative and quantitative evidence that problems in state-of-the-art user interfaces has led to underutilized power-saving settings, under-utilized battery energy,...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: MHCI
• Authors: Ahmad Rahmati, Angela Qian, Lin Zhong
• Keywords: Battery Lifetime, Human Computer Interaction, MHCI 2007, Mobile Phone Users, Mobile Phones