510 research outputs found
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Obstacles to wearable computing
In the year 2021, wearable technology could look beautiful and feel magical, but instead is exemplified by a plain wristband that looks suspiciously like a prison monitor.
How can we make wearable technology that respects our privacy, enhances our daily lives, integrates with our other connected devices without leashing us to a smartphone, and visually expresses who we are?
This study uses a novel method of participatory design fiction (PDFi) to understand potential users of everyday wearable technology through storytelling. I recruited participants from the general public and gave them a five-point prompt to create a design fiction (DF), which inspired the user-centred design of an everyday connected wearable device. The participants each received a technology probe to wear in the wild for a year. They then updated their DFs as a way to reflect on the implications of the technology. For the purposes of privacy, augmenting device functionality through interoperability, and integration into an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, I used the Hub-of-All-Things personal data store to provide the software infrastructure.
By listening to their stories, we can elicit design concepts directly from the users, to help us create wearable IoT devices that put the wearer at the centre of the design process, and are satisfying both functionally and emotionally.The Alan Turing Institute Doctoral Scheme, University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology, The Kenneth Hayter Memorial Fun
Prototyping Things:Reflecting on Unreported Objects of Design Research for IoT
Prototypes and other âthingsâ have had many uses in HCI researchâto help understand a problem, as a stepping stone towards a solution, or as a final outcome of a research process. However, within the messy context of a research through design project, many of these roles do not form part of the final research narratives, restricting the ability of other researchers to learn from this practice. In this paper we revisit prototypes used in three different design research projects, conducted over a period when the Internet of Things emerged into everyday life, exploring complex hidden relationships between the internet, people and physical objects. We aim to explore the unreported roles that prototypes played in these projects, including brokering relationships with participants and deconstructing opaque technologies. We reflect on how these roles align with existing understandings of prototypes in HCI, with particular attention to how these roles can contribute to design around IoT
Data Probes: Reflecting on Connected Devices with Technology-Mediated Probes
We introduce Data Probes, technology-mediated probes designed to reveal some of the inner workings of connected devices, including common embedded sensors and the data they collect. By making these common features both accessible and unfamiliar, the probes supported research participants in looking at these technologies from a different perspective and reflecting on capabilities and behaviours that may be obscured by the design of commercial products. During a study where participants lived and travelled with the probes for a month, we were able to gain generative design insights into peopleâs attitudes towards and relationships with connected devices, suggesting new opportunities for designs that take alternative approaches to currently entrenched visions of the Internet of Things. We present this exploratory study as an illustration of how a technology-mediated probe might prompt reflection on their technologies and open up new design spaces
Creative Toolkits for TIPS
We present a survey of toolkits employed in research workshop approaches within TIPS (Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security) domains. Our survey was developed within wider design research to develop prototypes that support people in evaluating whether to trust that an online actorâs identity is not recently faked, and that a service they are registering personal information with is legitimate; and a subsequent project involving a tool that invites people to reflect on the cumulative risks of sharing apparently harmless personal information online. The radically multidisciplinary nature of both these TIPS projects has determined that we create a research space to promote exchange to, as design researchers, better understand the âopaqueâ immediate and longer term implications of our proposed services and invite cross-disciplinary discussion towards interdisciplinary understandings. This paper is intended as an at-a-glance resource, or indeed toolkit, for researchers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds working on TIPS research to inform on various different material engagements, with research stakeholders, through creative workshop approaches. Our survey focused on the literature from Design (especially Participatory Design and Codesign), Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and cybersecurity. It comprises 27 papers or toolkit examples organised across: review papers; example toolkits; case studies reporting relevant toolkit use; applied toolkits for learning/knowledge exchange; research toolkits focused on demonstrating a methodological-conceptual approach (some problematising emergent or near-future technologies); and two papers that straddled the latter two categories, focusing on future practical application. We begin with an overview of our rationale and method before presenting each group of texts in a table alongside a summary discussion. We go on to discuss the various material components, affordances and terminology of the toolkits along with core concerns often left out of the reporting of research; before going on to recognise toolkits not such much as a tool that identify and fix things but as a lose collection of readily available resources, used in particular socio-approaches that together help surface techno-relational vulnerabilities and contingencies in TIPS-related discourse
Design Fiction for Real-World Connected Wearables
Wearable IoT technology has too much potential to be limited to a wristband. How can we design wearables with more variety while still providing value to the user? We describe a work in progress to develop a novel method of Participatory Design Fiction to inspire a real-world, everyday wearable IoT system. We show how this has led to a greater understanding of our usersâ needs, resulting in a technology probe for an everyday wearable IoT system that works towards meeting those needs.Doctoral studentship funded by The Alan Turing Institute. Research activity funded by the University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology
Older Generation: Self-Powered IoTs, Home-Life and âAgeing Wellâ
Internet of Things (IoT) technology is found in many homes. These systems enable tasks to be done more effectively or efficiently â e.g., securing property, monitoring and adjusting resources, trackingbehaviours for well-being, and so on. The system presented here was designed with older adults; the vast majority of home IoT systems marketed to this age group are not growth-oriented but rather decline-focused, monitoring and signalling well-being issues. In contrast to both âmainstreamâ and âolder adultâ IoT frameworks, then, we present a toolkit designed only to platform reflections,conversations and insights by occupants and visitors in regards to diverse user-defined meaningful home activities: hobbies, socialisation, fun, relaxation, and so on. Furthermore, mindful of the climatecrisis and the battery recharge or replacement requirements in conventional IoT systems, the toolkit is predominantly self-powered. We detail the design process and home deployments, highlighting the value of alternative data presentations from the simplest to LLM-enabled
My boy builds coffins. Future memories of your loved ones
The research is focus on the concept of storytelling associated with product design, trying to investigate new ways of designing and a possible future scenario related to the concept of death. MY BOY BUILDS COFFINS is a gravestone made using a combination of cremationâs ashes and resin. It is composed by a series of holes in which the user can stitch a text, in order to remember the loved one. The stitching need of a particular yarn produced in Switzerland using some parts of human body. Project also provides another version which uses LED lights instead of the yarn. The LEDs - thanks to an inductive coupling - will light when It will be posed in the hole. The gravestone can be placed where you want, as if it would create a little altar staff at home. In this way, there is a real connection between the user and the dearly departed
The Internet of Things Connectivity Binge: What are the Implications?
Despite wide concern about cyberattacks, outages and privacy violations, most experts believe the Internet of Things will continue to expand successfully the next few years, tying machines to machines and linking people to valuable resources, services and opportunities
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