Towards a Design Space for Ubiquitous Computing

Ilya Shmorgun, David LamasInstitute of Informatics

Tallinn University

Supported by the Tiger University Program of the Information Technology Foundation for Education.

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Introduction

• While the field of ubiquitous computing is quite mature, it lacks robust analytical tools devoted to design.

• Design issues are commonly being solved on a case-by-case basis in small teams, where it is sufficiently easy to convey ideas.

• There appears to be a need for means of helping interaction designers better understand the potential options available to them for the design of ubicomp systems and the reasons for choosing among those options.

• One such potential means is the ubiquitous computing design space.

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Procedure

• The design space is a result of a literature review, which was guided by the question: “What constitutes the field of ubiquitous computing?”

• Additional questions were related to the main challenges, issues, focus areas, and technologies being used.

• Articles from international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings were collected in ACM Digital Library, IEEE Computer Society, and Springer Link, in addition to several books from Amazon.com.

• The findings were structured with the help of the QOC notation, which is part of the design space rationale approach, proposed by Maclean et al.

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Design Space

• The design space can be presented as a node-and-link diagram or in tabular form.

• The Questions are related to characteristics, enabling technologies, design challenges, design goals, and quality attributes.

• Options are presented as potential answers to the Questions, and Criteria argue for or against the Options.

• Criteria arguing for the Options are connected with a full line or are marked with a “+” in the table, the Options arguing against are marked with a dashed line or a “-”.

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Example Visualization of the Design Space

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Examples of Use

• The design space was used in the LearnMix project, where suitable Options were selected based on the project’s design values.

• The Options were ranked by using a 3-point scale to identify their relevance to the project.

• The results suggest that it is important to focus on designing a system reliant on embedded infrastructure, enabled by multimedia, alternative forms input, low-power high-performance processors, communications, and web technologies. The main design challenge is to understand user needs with a goal of augmenting existing practices and with attention to usability.

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Discussion

• The design space does not provide answers to all possible issues and should be further matured through use.

• Alternative forms of visualizing the design space could be explored as existing approaches do not work well with too many Options and Criteria.

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Conclusion

• The proposed design space attempts to map the status quo of ubiquitous computing and provide a way of exploring possible directions without premature commitment.

• The design space aims to present potential design goals, characteristics, challenges, technologies, and quality attributes to be used by ubicomp designers.

• It is up to the designer to select the Options based on the requirements of a particular project.