Design of Ubiquitous Interactions

Ilya Shmorgun David Lamas

Institute of Informatics Tallinn University

September 13, 2013

Before We Begin

The course blog is available at http:// designofubiquitousinteractions.wordpress.com Fill out a survey available at http://idlab.tlu.ee/limesurvey/ to register for the course.

Activity Plan
Time Activity Description Introduction to ubiquitous computing. 10:00 - 11:00 Introduction Introduction to ubiquitous interactions. Introduction to interaction design. Introduction to the design challenge. Narrow down the design challenge by selecting the personas and scenarios. Scenarios can be modied or expanded if necessary. 12:00 - 13:00 13:00 - 13:15 13:15 - 16:30 Lunch Group presentations Work in groups Present the chosen design challenge. Continue developing concepts for the selected design challenge. Present the results of the work to other groups. 16:30 - 17:00 Group presentations Clearly explain why the concept ts into the ubiquitous computing vision. Oer reections on the design process.

11:00 - 12:00

Work in groups

Topics

Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous Interactions

Interaction Design

Ubiquitous E-Textbook References

Section 1 Ubiquitous Computing

Waves of Computing

The rst wave of computing was dened by mainframes, which were usually owned by large organizations and used by many people at the same time. The second wave was dened by the personal computer, which was primarily owned and used by a single person. The third wave is ubiquitous computing, which in turn is characterized by a plethora of portable connected devices being available to a single person to be owned and used (Krumm, 2009).

1901 - 1950
1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971

1951 - 2000
1981 1991 2001 2011 2021

2001 - 2050
2031 2041

1960 - 1979: Mainframes 1980 - 1989: Wired PC-s and data servers 1990 - 1999: Wireless laptops and PDA's

Technology

1991: Mark Weiser - The Computer for the 21st Century 2000 - 2009: Phones, TV-s, game consoles, digital cameras, AV players 2010 - 2020: Many devices in the environment, which can be dynamically connected to each other

Mainframe Computing Personal Computing Ubiquitous Computing

Figure : Development of computing by decades

Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing

Initially, ubiquitous computing was seen as a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been integrated into everyday objects (Zhao & Wang, 2011). Ubiquitous computing referred to systems, which enable information and tasks to be available everywhere, support intuitive usage and appear to be invisible to the user. This represented a shift towards a scenario where people live, work, and play in computer-enhanced environments. In this context people were meant to be surrounded by computing devices and infrastructure that supported all of their activities (Poslad, 2011).

Historical Development
The ubiquitous computings vision was proposed by Mark Weiser during his work at Xerox PARC. Weiser believed that computation should be integrated into common objects that are already being used in everyday practices, eliminating the need for computing to be seen as a separate activity. If the integration was done well, a person would not notice that any computers were involved in what he was doing (Krumm, 2009). Much of the work done at Xerox PARC was driven by the idea that in order to understand the future it was necessary to create a close approximation of it and attempt to use it day to day (Dourish & Bell, 2011).

Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing

The vision of ubiquitous computing was to make familiar tools and environments perform better by integrating computational and networking capabilities (Kuniavsky, 2010), foreseeing the delivery of information anywhere, anytime, and in a way that is appropriate to the current location and context. Alternative research directions, such as pervasive computing, eventually began addressing the issues of creating the necessary infrastructure and saturating everyday environments with computational capabilities (Krumm, 2009). On the other hand ubiquitous computing nowadays focuses on a persons perception of ubiquitous access to information, even though in reality this does not require an environment to be saturated with technology, but instead can be achieved through a high degree of mobility and pervasively embedded infrastructure.

High Mobile Computing Mobility Cross-platform computing Ubiquitous Computing

Traditional Computing

Pervasive Computing

Low

Embeddedness Cloud computing

High

Figure : Dimensions of computing (Lyytinen & Yoo, 2002)

Cross-Platform Computing

Ubiquitous Computing

Cloud Computing

Traditional Computing

Figure : Positioning ubiquitous computing

Denition of Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous computing is about how technology should be experienced (Dourish & Bell, 2011); a point where technology touches people (Krumm, 2009); a particular situation, a set of assumptions about the role of technology, instead of the details of specic hardware or software (Greeneld, 2010). While the modus operandi of ubiquitous computing has been anytime, anywhere information access, another approach is to focus on the exploration of the spaces into which computation is introduced, which leads to a new perspective on technology: the right now and right there (Dourish & Bell, 2011).

Section 2 Ubiquitous Interactions

Denition of Ubiquitous Interactions

Ubiquitous interactions are a chain of activities that form a process (Saer, 2009) of using ubiquitous services (Kuniavsky, 2010), which are seen as information that has value for the user (Saer, 2009). Information in ubiquitous services can move around a wide range of dierent devices (Dourish, 2001) that a user has access to and uses. These devices form a users artifact ecology (Jung, Stolterman, Ryan, Thompson, & Siegel, 2008) and act as representations or avatars of the services they are running (Kuniavsky, 2010). The user interacts with the devices in his artifact ecology through multiple, dynamic, and heterogeneous interfaces (Klokmose, 2007), which support feature parity, context-awareness, seamlessness of interaction, and ubiquitous access to information.

Ubiquitous and Cross-Platform Services

Cloud-computing and mobile computing are seen as enablers of ubiquitous services. The dierence between cross-platform and ubiquitous services is seen in the fact that cross-platform services are not meant to work as a coherent whole across the dierent platforms. Cross-platform services are available on dierent devices but are not meant to work as a single continuous whole.

Ubiquitous Interactions

References: [1] P. Dourish and G. Bell, Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing. The MIT Press, 2011. [2] P. Dourish, Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction, New. The MIT Press, 2001. [3] C. N. Klokmose, An instrumental paradigm for ubiquitous interaction, presented at the Proceedings of the 14th European conference on Cognitive ergonomics: invent! explore!, New York, NY, USA, 2007, pp. 257260. [4] M. Kuniavsky, Smart Things: Ubiquitous Computing User Experience Design, 1st ed. Morgan Kaufmann, 2010. [5] K. Lyytinen and Y. Yoo, Introduction, Commun. ACM, vol. 45, no. 12, pp. 6265, 2002. [6] D. Saffer, Designing for Interaction: Creating Innovative Applications and Devices, 2nd ed. New Riders Publishing, 2009. [7] H. Jung, E. Stolterman, W. Ryan, T. Thompson, and M. Siegel, Toward a framework for ecologies of artifacts: how are digital artifacts interconnected within a personal life?, presented at the NordiCHI '08: Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridges, 2008. [8] G. Chen and D. Kotz, A Survey of Context-Aware Mobile Computing Research, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA, 2000.

Are

A chain of activities that form a process [6] A dialogue Of using

With

Ubiquitous services [4]

Which are seen as

Which are perceived as

Which are enabled by

Information That has That can move around

Ubiquitous

Cloud computing

Because they are available Value for the user [6] A wide range of different devices [2] Right now and right there [1] By relying on a high level of Which Which are seen as A user has access to and uses Multiple, dynamic and heterogenous interfaces [3] Representations or avatars of the services [4] A users artifact ecology [7] Which support Feature parity Context-awareness Contextual information [8] Ubiquitous access to information Seamlessness of interaction Dynamic representations Mobility [5] Which the user interacts with through Which can build Pervasively embedded infrastructure [5]

Which form

Of their Particular environment

Through the use of

Figure : Concept map explaining ubiquitous interactions

Section 3 Interaction Design

Denition of Interaction Design

Design is an activity which enables the designer to make his ideas tangible through the creation of prototypes, which can take the form of sketches, models, descriptions of use-cases, or specications (Krippendor, 1989). Interaction design is a practice of shaping digital products for peoples use (L owgren, 2013). Interaction design is an iterative process. Progressing through the dierent iterations the initial product concept becomes more detailed.

A Focus on Behavior
In a way any interaction can be considered a dialog between the user and the system (Saer, 2009). In this dialog a user makes an action by issuing a command to the system, or pressing a button or link, and the system responds by launching a function or showing a piece of information. One of the tasks of the interaction designer is to gure out how the system is going to react to the users input in a reasonable and understandable way. It can also be said that the interaction designer shapes the dialog between the user and the system (Kolko, 2011), focusing specically on the systems behavior (Moggridge, 2007).

Figure : Overview of the interaction design process (Leurs et al., n.d.)

Section 4 Ubiquitous E-Textbook

Digitization of Learning Materials

There is an increased eort from academic publishers in the recent years to digitize existing learning materials. This process often results in the creation of PDF documents providing a synthesis of knowledge and meant to be read from beginning to end. However, the outcome does not facilitate interaction with available devices, people, and environments.

A Shift in Expectations

Owning dierent devices becomes more commonplace. This leads to the expectation on the users part to be able to access their information from any device, which is close to hand. Additionally, schools are experimenting with dierent approaches, such as providing students with devices or BYOD strategies.

Figure : A teachers laptop connected to a projector

Figure : Using blackboards and smartboards side by side

Figure : Using Prezi to give math assignments to students

Figure : Laptops used during a math lesson

Figure : iPad charging cart

Figure : Math game running on an iPad

Figure : Traditional textbooks

Shortcomings of Existing Approaches

Digital learning materials often directly mimic the physical ones. There is not enough support oered to students to take their individual learning paths and to better collaborate with teachers and fellow students. Design approaches such as Mobile First and Responsive Design oer solutions on the level of the user interface, not addressing much of the dierent ways of interacting with devices.

High Mobile Computing Mobility Cross-platform computing Ubiquitous Computing

Traditional Computing

Pervasive Computing

Low

Embeddedness Cloud computing

High

Figure : Dimensions of computing (Lyytinen & Yoo, 2002)

High Mobile applications Mobility Cross-platform computing Kindle e-textbooks

PDF e-textbooks

Materials in Google Sites or blogs

Low

Embeddedness Cloud computing

High

Figure : Positioning learning materials in relation to the dimensions of computing

Our Vision of the E-Textbook

We foresee the e-textbook of the future as an aggregation of both professional and user-contributed content. This e-textbook should be designed as a ubiquitous service, meaning that it should be cloud-connected and accessible anywhere and from any device. The e-textbook should t into existing artifact ecologies and currently established practices.

The Design Challenge

The challenge for the workshop is to imagine what the next generation e-textbook solution could be. You should select a particular usage scenario and create a storyboard, mind map, owchart or other visualization, which should portrait at least one full activity of using the e-textbook but not necessarily depict illustrations of the screens. We are providing examples of scenarios observed in a real-world school setting as well as personas, which you can use in your storyboard exercise. The scenarios can be modied and expanded if necessary.

Guiding Questions

What features could be included in the e-textbook? How do you imagine the e-textbook being used? How do you see the selected functionalities being presented to users?

References I
Dourish, P. (2001). Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction (New ed.). The MIT Press. Dourish, P., & Bell, G. (2011). Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing. The MIT Press. Greeneld, A. (2010). Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (1st ed.). New Riders Publishing. Jung, H., Stolterman, E., Ryan, W., Thompson, T., & Siegel, M. (2008, October). Toward a framework for ecologies of artifacts: how are digital artifacts interconnected within a personal life? In Nordichi 08: Proceedings of the 5th nordic conference on human-computer interaction: building bridges. ACM Request Permissions. Klokmose, C. N. (2007). An instrumental paradigm for ubiquitous interaction. In Proceedings of the 14th european conference on cognitive ergonomics: invent! explore! (pp. 257260). New York, NY, USA: ACM.

References II
Kolko, J. (2011). Thoughts on Interaction Design (2nd ed.). Morgan Kaufmann. Krippendor, K. (1989, January). On the Essential Contexts of Artifacts or on the Proposition That Design Is Making Sense (Of Things). Design Issues, 5(2), 939. Krumm, J. (Ed.). (2009). Ubiquitous Computing Fundamentals. Chapman and Hall/CRC. Kuniavsky, M. (2010). Smart Things: Ubiquitous Computing User Experience Design (1st ed.). Morgan Kaufmann. Leurs, B., Conradie, P., Laumans, J., & Verboom, R. (n.d.). Generic Work Process. Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. L owgren, J. (2013). Interaction Design - brief intro. In M. Soegaard & R. F. Dam (Eds.), The encyclopedia of human-computer interaction, 2nd ed. Aarhus, Denmark: The Interaction Design Foundation.

References III
Lyytinen, K., & Yoo, Y. (2002). Introduction. Commun. ACM, 45(12), 6265. Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing Interactions (1st ed.). The MIT Press. Poslad, S. (2011). Ubiquitous Computing: Smart Devices, Environments and Interactions (1st ed.). Wiley. Saer, D. (2009). Designing for Interaction: Creating Innovative Applications and Devices (2nd ed.). New Riders Publishing. Zhao, R., & Wang, J. (2011). Visualizing the research on pervasive and ubiquitous computing. Scientometrics, 86(3), 593612.