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Designing for the Internet of Things : models and principles for application-augmented products.
Abstract
The Internet of Things, whose underlying vision and technologies aim at bridging the physical and digital worlds together, lead to the creation of new types of applications coupling Web services with everyday products. Such product-oriented applications, which enable the functional exposition, control or enhancement of artifacts that embed information processing capabilities, question the established design principles and conventions. They open up the possibility for Internet-enabled products, whose functions can be “augmented” and adapted to better support users' changing needs, to be designed. This research, which is at the intersection of Design Science, Ubiquitous Computing and Human-Computer Interactions, aims at studying the impact brought about by applications on product design. It highlights the need to build an application model that facilitates their representation by users, and to explore the pragmatic issues rose by their integration into products. It leads to the definition and evaluation, through practice, of principles for the design of augmented products' form and interactions. It describes the ductility of future products, the novel coupling between functions, behavior and structure they implement and their potential evolutions. This work contributes to the Internet of Things research by reframing the discussion and by providing researchers and practitioners with tools that can be leveraged during the design process.
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This paper explores an approach to design research that is becoming more prevalent in practice-based doctoral studies and examines what it tells us about the current state of design research. A previous examination of design PhD case studies has shown that the bricolage approach is evident in a majority of contemporary practice-based design PhDs [1]. The usual academic norm of using an established method or methodology is often discarded in favour of a ‘pick and mix’ approach to select and apply the most appropriate methods. Does it suggest a discipline in crisis, where existing methods are unfit for purpose? Or does this suggest that design as a discipline is maturing and developing a distinct research model? Is design undisciplined? The paper answers these questions by proposing that design researchers navigate a complex, indeterminate and temporal framework where the bricoleur is the best operative.
The tremendous developments in mobile computing and handheld devices have allowed for an increasing usage of the resources of the World Wide Web. People today consume information and services on the go, through smart phones applications capable of exploiting their location in order to adapt the content according to the context of use. As location-based services gain traction and reveal their limitations, we argue there is a need for intelligent systems to be created to better support people's activities in their experience of the city, especially regarding their decision-making processes. In this article, we explore the opportunity to move closer to the realization of the ubiquitous computing vision by turning physical places into smart environments capable of cooperatively and autonomously collecting, processing, and transporting information about their characteristics (e.g., practical information, presence of people, and ambience). Following a multidisciplinary approach which leverages psychology, design, and computer science, we propose to investigate the potential of building communication and interaction spaces, called information spheres, on top of physical places such as businesses, homes, and institutions. We argue that, if the latter are exposed on the Web, they can act as a platform delivering information and services and mediating interactions with smart objects without requiring too much effort for the deployment of the architecture. After presenting the inherent challenges of our vision, we go through the protocol of two preliminary experiments that aim to evaluate users' perception of different types of information (i.e., reviews, check-in information, video streams, and real-time representations) and their influence on the decision-making process. Results of this study lead us to elaborate the design considerations that must be taken into account to ensure the intelligibility and user acceptance of information spheres. We finally describe a research prototype application called Environment Browser (Env-B) and present the underlying smart space middleware, before evaluating the user experience with our system through quantitative and qualitative methods.
An analysis of the ways that software creates new spatialities in everyday life, from supermarket checkout lines to airline flight paths.
After little more than half a century since its initial development, computer code is extensively and intimately woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. From the digital alarm clock that wakes us to the air traffic control system that guides our plane in for a landing, software is shaping our world: it creates new ways of undertaking tasks, speeds up and automates existing practices, transforms social and economic relations, and offers new forms of cultural activity, personal empowerment, and modes of play. In Code/Space, Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge examine software from a spatial perspective, analyzing the dyadic relationship of software and space. The production of space, they argue, is increasingly dependent on code, and code is written to produce space. Examples of code/space include airport check-in areas, networked offices, and cafés that are transformed into workspaces by laptops and wireless access. Kitchin and Dodge argue that software, through its ability to do work in the world, transduces space. Then Kitchin and Dodge develop a set of conceptual tools for identifying and understanding the interrelationship of software, space, and everyday life, and illustrate their arguments with rich empirical material. And, finally, they issue a manifesto, calling for critical scholarship into the production and workings of code rather than simply the technologies it enables—a new kind of social science focused on explaining the social, economic, and spatial contours of software.
This paper aims to contribute to the discussion about the co-creation of Intelligent Products in the emerging paradigm of the "Internet of Things". The direct involvement of human actors such as designers, manufacturers, end-users, and recycling operators into the design process of Intelligent Products is a powerful means to ensure a high degree of the fulfilment of requirements towards functionality, ergonomics, sustainability and other factors which directly affect the acceptance of Intelligent Products. This paper discusses the potential of applying the Arduino Platform as a lowcost, easy-to-use micro-controller and sensor kit to facilitate co-creation. Use cases illustrating first experiences with the Arduino platform in the co-creation of Intelligent Products are presented. A critical appraisal of the approach and an outlook towards future work in the area concludes the paper.
Integrating resources into the Web is an important aspect of making them accessible as part of this global information system. The integration of physical things into the Web so far has not been done on a large scale, which makes it harder to realize network eects that could emerge by the combination of today's Web content, and the integration of physical things into the Web. This paper presents a path towards a Web where physical objects are made available through RESTful principles. By using this architectural style for pervasive and ubiquitous computing scenarios, they will scale better, integrate better with other applications, and pave the path towards a "Web of Things" that seamlessly integrates conceptual and physical resources.
Internet of Things: Connecting Objects... puts forward the technologies and the networking architectures which make it possible to support the Internet of Things. Amongst these technologies, RFID, sensor and PLC technologies are described and a clear view on how they enable the Internet of Things is given. This book also provides a good overview of the main issues facing the Internet of Things such as the issues of privacy and security, application and usage, and standardization.
The coming ubiquity of computational things urges us to consider what it means for something to be present in someone's life, in contrast to being just used for something. “Use” and “presence” represent two perspectives on what a thing is. While “use” refers to a general description of a thing in terms of what it is used for, “presence” refers to existential definitions of a thing based on how we invite and accept it as a part of our lifeworld. Searching for a basis on which these existential definitions are formed, we argue that the expressions of things are central for accepting them as present in our lives. We introduce the notion of an expressional, referring to a thing designed to be the bearer of certain expressions, just as an appliance is designed to be the bearer of a certain functionality. Aesthetics, as a logic of expressions, can provide a proper foundation for design for presence. We discuss the expressiveness of computational things as depending both on time structures and space structures. An aesthetical leitmotif for the design of computational things—a leitmotif that may be used to guide a normative design philosophy, or a design style—is described. Finally, we describe a practical example of what designing a mobile phone as an “expressional” might be like.
This paper interprets the Internet of Things (IoT) definitions and gives our understanding for the IoT concept in terms of ″Sensor network of Things″, and describes the global developments and international strategic plans towards this technology in US, Europe, Japan and China. Key technologies are further discussed in detail, with a focus on Identification Technology, Architecture Technology, Communication and Network, Search and Discovery Service, Data Processing, Security and Privacy, Standardization and Governance. Some advice are given for China IoT Construction within three aspects: national, industrial and academic Dimensions. The paper aims to provide reference for the research and development of China IoT.
The world of smart shoes, appliances, and phones is already here, but the practice of user experience (UX) design for ubiquitous computing is still relatively new. Design companies like IDEO and frogdesign are regularly asked to design products that unify software interaction, device design and service design -- which are all the key components of ubiquitous computing UX -- and practicing designers need a way to tackle practical challenges of design. Theory is not enough for them -- luckily the industry is now mature enough to have tried and tested best practices and case studies from the field. Smart Things presents a problem-solving approach to addressing designers' needs and concentrates on process, rather than technological detail, to keep from being quickly outdated. It pays close attention to the capabilities and limitations of the medium in question and discusses the tradeoffs and challenges of design in a commercial environment. Divided into two sections ? frameworks and techniques ? the book discusses broad design methods and case studies that reflect key aspects of these approaches. The book then presents a set of techniques highly valuable to a practicing designer. It is intentionally not a comprehensive tutorial of user-centered design'as that is covered in many other books'but it is a handful of techniques useful when designing ubiquitous computing user experiences. In shot, Smart Things gives its readers both the "why" of this kind of design and the "how," in well-defined chunks. * Tackles design of products in the post-Web world where computers no longer have to be monolithic, expensive general-purpose devices * Features broad frameworks and processes, practical advice to help approach specifics, and techniques for the unique design challenges * Presents case studies that describe, in detail, how others have solved problems, managed trade-offs, and met successes.
Businesses and the HCI and Interaction Design communities have embraced design and design research. Design research as a field blends methodologies from several disciplines - sociology, engineering, software, philosophy, industrial design, HCI/interaction design -- so designers can learn from past successes and failure and don't have to reinvent the wheel for each new design (whether it's a digital product, a building, an airplane or furniture). They take into account form, function, and, ultimately, users. Many books exist in the research and academic realm for this field, but none create a usable bridge to design practice. Although business people are embracing design, they are not going to become designers. Design researchers need tools to apply their research in the real world. Design Research through Practice takes advanced design practice as its starting point, but enriches it to build a design process than can respond to both academic and practical problems. The aims of the book are to study three design research traditions that cover methodological directions in current leading research community. Taking you from the Lab, Field and to the Showroom, Ilpo Koskinen and his group of researchers show you successful traditions in design research that have been integrated into processes and products. Bridging the gap from design research to design practice, this is a must have for any designer. *Brings together design research experts from traditional lab science, social science, industrial design, UX and HCI to lend tried and tested practices and how they can be used in a variety of design projects *Provides a multidisciplinary story of the whole design process, including proven and teachable techniques grounded in theory than can respond to both academic and practical problems *Presents key examples that illustrate how research is applied and vignettes that summarize the key how-to details of specific projects (timelines, resources needed, skills needed, etc.).
When humans talk with humans, they are able to use implicit situational information, or context, to increase the conversational bandwidth. Unfortunately, this ability to convey ideas does not transfer well to humans interacting with computers. In traditional interactive computing, users have an impoverished mechanism for providing input to computers. By improving the computer’s access to context, we increase the richness of communication in human-computer interaction and make it possible to produce more useful computational services. The use of context is increasingly important in the fields of handheld and ubiquitous computing, where the user?s context is changing rapidly. In this panel, we want to discuss some of the research challenges in understanding context and in developing context-aware applications.
This article asks methodological questions about studying infrastructure with some of the tools and perspectives of ethnography. infrastructure is both relational and ecological-it means different things to different groups and it is part of the balance of action tools, and the built environment, inseparable from them. It also is frequently mundane to the point of boredom, involving things such as plugs, standards, and bureaucratic forms. Some of the difficulties of studying infrastructure are how to scale up from traditional ethnographic sites, how to manage large quantities of data such as those produced by transaction logs and how to understand the interplay of online and offline behavior: Some of the tricks of the trade involved in meeting these challenges include studying the design of infrastructure, understanding the paradoxes of infrastructure as both transparent and opaque, including invisible work in the ecological analysis, and pinpointing the epistemological status of indictors.
Home and automation are not natural partners--one homey and the other cold. Most current automation in the home is packaged in the form of appliances. To better understand the current reality and possible future of living with other types of domestic technology, we went out into the field to conduct need finding interviews among people who have already introduced automation into their homes and kept it there--home automators. We present the lessons learned from these home automators as frameworks and implications for the values that domestic technology should support. In particular, we focus on the satisfaction and meaning that the home automators derived from their projects, especially in connecting to their homes (rather than simply controlling their homes). These results point the way toward other technologies designed for our everyday lives at home.
Ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp) is the label for a “third wave” of computing technologies. Following the eras of the mainframe computer and the desktop PC, it is characterized by small and powerful computing devices that are worn, carried, or embedded in the world around us. The ubicomp research agenda originated at Xerox PARC in the late 1980s; these days, some form of that vision is a reality for the millions of users of Internet-enabled phones, GPS devices, wireless networks, and “smart” domestic appliances. This book explores the vision that has driven the ubiquitous computing research p ... More
Ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp) is the label for a “third wave” of computing technologies. Following the eras of the mainframe computer and the desktop PC, it is characterized by small and powerful computing devices that are worn, carried, or embedded in the world around us. The ubicomp research agenda originated at Xerox PARC in the late 1980s; these days, some form of that vision is a reality for the millions of users of Internet-enabled phones, GPS devices, wireless networks, and “smart” domestic appliances. This book explores the vision that has driven the ubiquitous computing research program and the contemporary practices which have emerged—both the motivating mythology and the everyday messiness of lived experience. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the authors’ collaboration, it takes seriously the need to understand ubicomp not only technically but also culturally, socially, politically, and economically. The authors map the terrain of contemporary ubiquitous computing, in the research community and in daily life; explore dominant narratives in ubicomp around such topics as infrastructure, mobility, privacy, and domesticity; and suggest directions for future investigation, particularly with respect to methodology and conceptual foundations.
Due to the complexity of contemporary technology, product and system
design efforts often require intensive organization and communication
within teams; the design venture must accordingly be carefully planned
and systematically executed, integrating the various aspects of the
design process into a logical and comprehensible whole. The present
comprehensive and systematic treatment of this methodology proceeds by
clarifying the design task, establishing the function structures of a
conceptual design, and finally determining the definitive layout
embodying the design. Illustrative examples of actual product design
processes and their results are presented and evaluated.
The aim of this experiment conducted with 51 French children was to understand the relationships between children's information search performances and their mental model of the Web. Each participant was individually asked (a) to complete a demographic questionnaire asking experience with the Web, (b) to draw a picture of her/his perception about the Web, and (c) to perform two search tasks. The results showed that several mental models existed for young users about the Web, independently of their experience with the Web. Moreover, the results confirmed that mental model of the Web could have an effect on the performance.
Attention has been given to making user interface design and testing less costly so that it might be more easily incorporated into the product development life cycle. Three experiments are reported in this paper that relate the proportion of usability problems identified in an evaluation to the number of subjects participating in that study. The basic findings are that (a) 80% of the usability problems are detected with four or five subjects, (b) additional subjects are less and less likely to reveal new information, and (c) the most severe usability problems are likely to have been detected in the first few subjects. Ramifications for the practice of human factors are discussed as they relate to the type of usability test cycle employed and the goals of the usability test.
We examine how ambient displays can augment social television. Social TV 2 is an interactive television solution that incorporates two ambient displays to convey to participants an aggregate view of their friends' current TV-watching status. Social TV ...
Prototypes are widely recognized to be a core means of exploring and expressing designs for interactive computer artifacts. Choosing the right kind of more focused prototype to build is an art in itself, and communicating its limited purposes to its various audiences is a critical aspect of its use. Current terminology for describing prototypes centers on attributes of prototypes themselves that can be distracting. Tools can be used in many different ways, and detail is not a sure indicator of completion. This chapter proposes a change in the language used to talk about prototypes, to focus more on fundamental questions about the interactive system being designed. The goal of this chapter is to establish a model that describes any prototype in terms of the artifact being designed rather than the prototype's incidental attributes. By focusing on the purpose of the prototype—that is, what it prototypes—better decisions can be made about the kinds of prototypes to build. With a clear purpose for each prototype, prototypes can be better used to think and communicate about design. This chapter begins by describing current difficulties in communicating about prototypes: the complexity of interactive systems; issues of multi-disciplinary teamwork; and the audiences of prototypes. The chapter introduces the model and illustrates it with some initial examples of prototypes from real projects. The chapter concludes with a summary of the main implications of the model for prototyping practice.
The Cooltown project at HP Labs applies Web technology to develop systems that support the users of wireless, handheld devices interacting with their environment, anywhere they may be. The basic elements of Web technology useful for ubiquitous computing are described in several papers and on-line resources from the Cooltown project [1-5]. Here we will give a flavor of the Cooltown user experience, discuss ways that context can be used in web systems, and explain why we think a web-based system for ubiquitous computing can achieve network effects. In our conclusion we will mention some of the many remaining challenges and our initial user studies platform.
This is the third paper in a series being published in Design Studies, which aims to establish the theoretical bases for treating design as a coherent discipline of study. The first contribution in the series was from Bruce Archer, in the very first issue of Design Studies, and the second was from Gerald Nadler, in Vol 1, No 5. Further contributions are invited.Here, Higel Cross takes up the arguments for a ‘third area’ of education—design—that were outlined by Archer. He further defines this area by contrasting it with the other two—sciences and humanities—and goes on to consider the criteria which design must satisfy to be acceptable as a part of general education. Such an acceptance must imply a reorientation from the instrumental aims of conventional design education, towards intrinsic values. These values derive from the ‘designerly ways of knowing’. Because of a common concern with these fundamental ‘ways of knowing’, both design research and design education are contributing to the development of design as a discipline.