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Riekki J, Salminen T & Alakärppä I (2006)
Requesting pervasive services by touching RFID tags.
IEEE Pervasive Computing 5(1-2):40-46.

We suggest a general framework for requesting pervasive services by touching RFID tags. The tags connect the physical and digital environments. Visual symbols communicate to users the objects that can be touched and the services that can be activated. When a user touches such a symbol with a mobile phone, the data stored in the tag and other contextual information related to the situation trigger the requested service. We have designed a set of visual symbols and implemented the required functionality as component-based middleware. We have studied the usability and user experience of this novel system. The results indicate that touching visual symbols with a mobile device is an easy way to activate services. Based on our findings, we list security, controllability and social acceptance as the main challenges in deploying this interaction method into everyday use.

Full paper (PDF)