Scanning Objects in the Wild: Assessing an Object Triggered Information System

We describe the results of a field deployment of the AURA system which links online content to physical objects through machine readable tags. AURA runs on commercially available pocket computers using integrated barcode scanners, wireless networks, and web services. We conducted a real world deployment with twenty participants over five weeks. The results from our field study illustrate the importance of moving beyond demonstrations and testing system design assumptions in the real world, as our field study highlighted several places that our seemingly reasonable design assumption did not match with real usage. Our experience deploying AURA highlighted several key features for mobile object triggered information systems including handling groups of items and a robust offline experience.