Painting the ideal home: using art to express visions of technologically supported independent living for older people in North East England

This paper describes the investigation of the development of future technological products to support older people in everyday living through the agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design approaches to gather technology requirements data from older people. Here, a project is described that sought to get a group of older people to think creatively about their needs and desires for technological support through the medium of paint. The artistic expression technique described in this article allowed the identification of issues that had also been found by previous research that used a range of different techniques. This indicates that the approach shows promise, as it allows information to be gathered in an environment that is comfortable and familiar using methods already known by the participants and which they find enjoyable. It provides a complement (or possible alternative) to standard protocols and has the potential benefit of extracting even richer information as the primary task for participants is enjoyable in its own right and is not associated with an interrogative process. Furthermore, it is argued that some of the key risks of traditional approaches are lessened or removed by the naturalistic setting of this approach

Ubiquitous systems and the family: Thoughts about the networked home

Developments in ubiquitous and pervasive computing herald a future in which computation is embedded into our daily lives. Such a vision raises important questions about how people, especially families, will be able to engage with and trust such systems whilst maintaining privacy and individual boundaries. To begin to address such issues, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study eliciting trust, privacy and identity concerns about pervasive computing. Over three hundred UK citizens participated in 38 focus groups. The groups were shown Videotaped Activity Scenarios [11] depicting pervasive or ubiquitous computing applications in a number of contexts including shopping. The data raises a number of important issues from a family perspective in terms of access, control, responsibility, benefit and complexity. Also findings highlight the conflict between increased functionality and the subtle social interactions that sustain family bonds. We present a Pre-Concept Evaluation Tool (PRECET) for use in design and implementation of ubicomp systems

The Mundane Computer: Non-Technical Design Challenges Facing Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence

Interdisciplinary collaboration, to include those who are not natural scientists, engineers and computer scientists, is inherent in the idea of ubiquitous computing, as formulated by Mark Weiser in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, ubiquitous computing has remained largely a computer science and engineering concept, and its non-technical side remains relatively underdeveloped. The aim of the article is, first, to clarify the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration envisaged by Weiser. Second, the difficulties of understanding the everyday and weaving ubiquitous technologies into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it, as conceived by Weiser, are explored. The contributions of Anne Galloway, Paul Dourish and Philip Agre to creating an understanding of everyday life relevant to the development of ubiquitous computing are discussed, focusing on the notions of performative practice, embodied interaction and contextualisation. Third, it is argued that with the shift to the notion of ambient intelligence, the larger scale socio-economic and socio-political dimensions of context become more explicit, in contrast to the focus on the smaller scale anthropological study of social (mainly workplace) practices inherent in the concept of ubiquitous computing. This can be seen in the adoption of the concept of ambient intelligence within the European Union and in the focus on rebalancing (personal) privacy protection and (state) security in the wake of 11 September 2001. Fourth, the importance of adopting a futures-oriented approach to discussing the issues arising from the notions of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence is stressed, while the difficulty of trying to achieve societal foresight is acknowledged

Hip to be square: designing serious apps for coolness

This paper discusses previous work in developing intervention apps for sustainability that are designed to be cool and improve user engagement. While much work has been carried out by the HCI community in sustainability, particularly energy consumption; little has been done to improve interaction with this relatively mundane but serious topic to engender a compelling and cooler experience. Using the theme of ‘it’s cool to be uncool’ for sustainability, we discuss the design of an eco-feedback Facebook application for deployment in a trial study. The Power Ballads Facebook app mashed mainstream ‘pop’ chart music with domestic energy data using aversive stimuli. Presented here are the pilot findings that suggest participants found the app cool

Effective ways to use nonpersonal information in healthcare: report from a workshop held at University College London 15-16 April 2004

New information technologies are being introduced in the UK National Health Service as resources for the acquisition of clinical knowledge. These are forcing working practices to adapt and are affecting and challenging perceived roles, relationships and expectations of patients and health professionals alike. Effective ways to use nonpersonal information in healthcare was a two-day workshop hosted by UCL Interaction Centre at University College London intended to provide a forum for practioners and researchers working in the area of clinical health information delivery to come together to discuss access to health information, and to consider how the various challenges and opportunities relating to electronic information provision can be managed most effectively. For the first day of the workshop, the theme for presentations and discussion was information provision for and access by health professionals. Talks were given by Julius Weinberg (City University, London), Roger Slack (University of Edinburgh) and Anne Adams (University College London). The theme for the second day was information provision and access by patients. Presentations were given by Mig Muller (NHS Direct), Jane Wilson (Whittington Hospital and Medi-notes), Andrew Herxheimer (University of Oxford) and Henry Potts (University College London). On both days, delegates formed into three groups for breakout sessions in which they discussed and reported back on: information quality and use, social and organisational context, and user requirements and training in relation to the respective daily theme (health practitioners/patients). This report summerises each of the presentations and the reports by the breakout groups

Entertaining situated messaging at home

Leisure and entertainment-based computing has been traditionally associated with interactive entertainment media and game playing, yet the forms of engagement offered by these technologies only support a small part of how we act when we are at leisure. In this paper, we move away from the paradigm of leisure technology as computer-based entertainment consumption, and towards a broader view of leisure computing. This perspective is more in line with our everyday experience of leisure as an embodied, everyday accomplishment in which people artfully employ the everyday resources in the world around them in carrying out their daily lives outside of work. We develop this extended notion of leisure using data from a field study of domestic communication focusing on asynchronous and situated messaging to explore some of these issues, and develop these findings towards design implications for leisure technologies. Central to our discussion on the normal, everyday and occasioned conduct of leisure lie the notions of playfulness and creativity, the interweaving of the worlds of work and leisure, and in the creation of embodied displays of affect, all of which may be seen manifested in the use of messaging artefacts. This view of technology in support of leisure-in-the-broad is strongly divergent from traditional entertainment computing models in its coupling of the mechanics of the organisation of everyday life to the ways that we make entertainment for ourselves. This recognition allows us to draw specific implications for domestic situated messaging technologies, but also more generally for technology design by tying activities that we tend to regard as purely functional to other multifaceted and leisure-related purposes

Introducing Identity

This chapter provides an introductory overview of theories of identity and indicates some of the broad ways in which they might be applied to young people's interactions with digital media. The first part of the chapter offers a brief account of five major areas of theory: social-psychological theories of adolescence; sociological theories of youth culture; theories of social identity, and the relations between individuals and groups; notions of identity politics; and theories of subjectivity and modernity. The second part of the chapter covers three major themes that are at stake in the analysis of young people and digital media: theories of technology; the notion of young people as a "digital generation"; and the place of learning, both in and beyond schools. In this course of this broad-ranging overview, the chapter also prefigures some of the more specific themes addressed in the chapters that make up the remainder of the volume

Going with the grain: mobile devices in practice

Fifty-seven alumni of a global Masters program participated in research into their use of mobile devices. Drawing on questionnaire and interview data,the paper examines how far the devices were embedded in the personal and professional lives of these alumni, most of whom were aged 35-54. All had experience of online and distance education, and most worked in education or training. The study revealed some innovative uses of mobile devices, a selection of which is reported in this paper. The paper links the findings to wider debates about the changing relationship between learners and educational institutions, and the role of mobile devices in enabling individuals to engage in learning conversations. Data are provided on which devices were used by the alumni and for what purposes, and the paper explores the implications of these findings for educators