Last week I went to San Jose for a week to attend CHI. Among other things I got to present my note Forget-me-not: History-less Mobile Messaging. This note received an Honorable Mention which is given to the top 5% papers and notes at the conference.

The paper is based on work done by a group of level 3 students. The group project was to design, build, and study a mobile text messaging app without history. This is what they did and turned into the app forget-me-not. The student project lasted a year, and throughout the project the students received first best presentation at the intermediate project presentations at half-time, and finally they received best L3 project in Computing Science in the school. I could not be prouder of these students. Topping that up with also being able to turn the work into a paper receiving an honorable mention surely is the cherry on the cake!

The final paper discuss mobile text messaging and the role of messaging history. To do that we study what happens with mobile text messaging when there is no history. By interviewing 10 participants after using the app for 2 weeks, we gain insights into how they perceive the app, and how they perceive messaging through it. We found that messaging requires effort, but allows users to be relaxed about what they write. History turns out to be useful in the ability to "scroll up" to see the past messages which allows for distractions. Not having history instead makes it more engaging. It is also discussed how not having history allows for sending messaging you don't want to have on record, such as bank details, or planning a secret birthday party. Read the whole paper, where we discuss the design of the app, and discuss the method of deliberately removing history to study history.