Unpacking the sociotechnical challenges of IoT design work in practice

The term `Internet of Things' (IoT), was coined in 1999 (Ashton et al., 2009), and has continued to grow under this heading since its conception with a number of subheadings developed (such as, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)) to give further classification as the field has expanded. By 2014 the IoT was being considered as an industry in its own right, "with the potential to have a greater impact on society than the  rst digital revolution" (Walport, 2014, p. 6). The Internet of Things is a growing industry spanning many different markets and sectors with worldwide device forecasts going from 9.7 billion in 2020 to over 29 billion in 2030 (Vailshery, 2022). As the industry matures it is becoming much easier for businesses and individuals to create IoT products and to release them onto the market. Components and resources are more readily available and a range of supporting services have been developed. Connected devices can now be seen in virtually every business sector. However, there are many design challenges associated with IoT design that have not yet been addressed in the academic literature. For example, the embedded, long-term, infrastructural nature of the IoT presents a somewhat unique design space for practitioners. The many layers of products and services add complexity to the task of design, both for new product design (Lee et al., 2019b) and modification of existing deployed systems. As embeddedness is core to the vision of ubiquitous computing it is important for research to move beyond the lab into real-world deployed settings (Fox et al., 2006). This is of particular importance to address theory practice gaps where research attempts to influence and inform interaction design. Investigating the existence and extent of a theory-practice gap requires a closer look at how interaction designers within the commercial world actually work, how their roles are organised and what constitutes professional competence (Goodman et al., 2011). The aim of the research in this thesis is to explore the challenges faced by design practitioners within the IoT industry and their methods of addressing them. This is with the intention of attending to the theory practice gap through provision of insights for the purpose of informing the creation of methods, practices and further academic research into the work of designing the IoT. The research was guided by the primary research question: 1) How do IoT related design team organise their work? which is addressed through the secondary questions of: 2) What design challenges are being faced when designing for the IoT within a commercial context? 3) What design practices are being applied to IoT related design work within these settings, and how? The findings reported here answer these research questions through the following contributions. 1) Identification of relational tensions within the process of IoT related design and demonstrations of practitioners methods of foregrounding them. 2) Demonstrations of the ways in which practitioners maintain visibility over tensions and product service layers to situate design reasoning. In particular, generation and use of notions of elemental states as a form of infrastructuring work, which builds on previous discussions of infrastructural inversion (Bowker, 1994; Simonsen et al., 2020) and the use of decision trees as a form of user journey mapping (Endmann and Keßner, 2016). 3) Identification of additional roles and responsibilities of digital plumbing (Tolmie et al., 2010; Castelli et al., 2021) and data-work within the IoT design space (Fischer et al., 2017)

Unpacking the sociotechnical challenges of IoT design work in practice

The term `Internet of Things' (IoT), was coined in 1999 (Ashton et al., 2009), and has continued to grow under this heading since its conception with a number of subheadings developed (such as, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)) to give further classification as the field has expanded. By 2014 the IoT was being considered as an industry in its own right, "with the potential to have a greater impact on society than the  rst digital revolution" (Walport, 2014, p. 6). The Internet of Things is a growing industry spanning many different markets and sectors with worldwide device forecasts going from 9.7 billion in 2020 to over 29 billion in 2030 (Vailshery, 2022). As the industry matures it is becoming much easier for businesses and individuals to create IoT products and to release them onto the market. Components and resources are more readily available and a range of supporting services have been developed. Connected devices can now be seen in virtually every business sector. However, there are many design challenges associated with IoT design that have not yet been addressed in the academic literature. For example, the embedded, long-term, infrastructural nature of the IoT presents a somewhat unique design space for practitioners. The many layers of products and services add complexity to the task of design, both for new product design (Lee et al., 2019b) and modification of existing deployed systems. As embeddedness is core to the vision of ubiquitous computing it is important for research to move beyond the lab into real-world deployed settings (Fox et al., 2006). This is of particular importance to address theory practice gaps where research attempts to influence and inform interaction design. Investigating the existence and extent of a theory-practice gap requires a closer look at how interaction designers within the commercial world actually work, how their roles are organised and what constitutes professional competence (Goodman et al., 2011). The aim of the research in this thesis is to explore the challenges faced by design practitioners within the IoT industry and their methods of addressing them. This is with the intention of attending to the theory practice gap through provision of insights for the purpose of informing the creation of methods, practices and further academic research into the work of designing the IoT. The research was guided by the primary research question: 1) How do IoT related design team organise their work? which is addressed through the secondary questions of: 2) What design challenges are being faced when designing for the IoT within a commercial context? 3) What design practices are being applied to IoT related design work within these settings, and how? The findings reported here answer these research questions through the following contributions. 1) Identification of relational tensions within the process of IoT related design and demonstrations of practitioners methods of foregrounding them. 2) Demonstrations of the ways in which practitioners maintain visibility over tensions and product service layers to situate design reasoning. In particular, generation and use of notions of elemental states as a form of infrastructuring work, which builds on previous discussions of infrastructural inversion (Bowker, 1994; Simonsen et al., 2020) and the use of decision trees as a form of user journey mapping (Endmann and Keßner, 2016). 3) Identification of additional roles and responsibilities of digital plumbing (Tolmie et al., 2010; Castelli et al., 2021) and data-work within the IoT design space (Fischer et al., 2017)

The effect of virtual audiences on music performance anxiety

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) is experienced by a large number of musicians throughout their careers. In many cases this anxiety can have debilitating consequences for the performer preventing them from delivering a performance to the standard they are capable of. Very little research has been conducted within the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into the ways in which technology can assist musicians with learning to manage their MPA. This paper builds on the limited body of research to test the potential effectiveness of a virtual audience as a tool in the treatment of MPA. Three performer interviews and a literature review of audience behaviour lay the foundation for the design of a virtual music festival that houses three different types of virtual audience. The audiences are designed to give positive, negative or neutral feedback to experienced musicians whilst they perform songs that they are confident with and songs that they are not. The aim of the study was to evaluate the extent to which a virtual audience can affect the onset of MPA and the extent to which performer confidence levels impact any effect, thus investigating its potential use for virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy to treat MPA. Results show a significant effect of audience type on self-reported state anxiety and performers’ self-rating of performance. Mean scores showed the highest anxiety scores and the lowest performance ratings in the negative audience conditions, demonstrating that approval feedback from virtual audiences can affect the onset of MPA. The use of anxiety management techniques is also identified through post-evaluation interviews with performers, adding further support to this effect. High levels of copresence were found throughout all conditions indicating that the participants were immersed and felt that they were interacting with the audience. This work supports pervious virtual audience research in the field of public speaking anxiety and also builds on the limited research of using virtual audiences for MPA. Strong potential is indicated for the use of virtual audiences in exposure treatment for MPA

Revisiting the Digital Plumber: Modifying the Installation Process of an Established Commercial IoT Alarm System

The ‘digital plumber’ is a conceptualisation in ubicomp research that describes the work of installing and maintaining IoT devices. But an important and often understated element of commercial IoT solutions is their long-term socio-technical infrastructural nature, and therefore long-term installation and maintenance needs. This adds complexity to both the practice of digital plumbing and to the work of design that supports it. In this paper we study a commercial company producing and installing IoT alarm systems. We examine video recordings that capture how a digital plumbing representative and software development team members make changes to both the installation process and supporting technology. Our data enables us to critically reflect on concepts of infrastructuring, and uncover the ways in which the team methodically foreground hidden elements of the infrastructure to address a point of failure experienced during field trials of a new version of their product. The contributions from this paper are twofold. Firstly, our findings build on previous examples of infrastructuring in practice by demonstrating the use of notions of elemental states to support design reasoning through the continual foregrounding and assessment of tensions identified as key factors at the point of failure. Secondly, we build on current notions of digital plumbing work. We argue that additional responsibilities of ‘reporting failure’ and ‘facilitation of change’ are part of the professional digital plumbing role and that commercial teams should support these additional responsibilities through collaborative troubleshooting and design sessions alongside solid communication channels with related stakeholders within the product team

Creating sustainable Internet of Things futures:Aligning legal and design research agendas

The way consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices are built is leading to electronic waste (eWaste) growth. This arises from planned obsolescence, bundling of ‘smartness’ creating more routes to device failure, and lacking hardware modularity and repairability. Understanding how to best to tackle these issues requires an interdisciplinary perspective bridging design, law, and the social science research. The legal landscape is shifting, encouraging design of repairable and long-lasting IoT, and reducing routes to redundancy. This one-day workshop explores the interface between design and legal research to address the socio-technical challenges around designing sustainable consumer IoT devices. The workshop will: map out the societal, legal, and environmental implications of IoT; envision the opportunities and barriers to designing more sustainable IoT; and share best practice and tools how to move towards more sustainable IoT futures

UbiFix: Tackling Repairability Challenges in Smart Devices

IoT products are increasingly becoming the default, with non-IoT versions of common hardware (e.g., TVs and printers) harder to find. Alongside this adoption surge, lack of support, outdated security, and planned obsolescence present concerning sustainability issues, contribute to eWaste growth and widen digital divides globally. This workshop aims to present and discuss legal, social, technical, and design aspects of repair practices, engaging the Ubicomp community in exploring challenges and opportunities for more repairable IoT devices. Focusing on diverse repair scenarios, the workshop seeks to establish a concise, holistic, and inclusive agenda for this research domain's future. Participants will map key research questions to support the movement towards more repairable technology

"What Might a More Sustainable Internet of Things Look Like?" Zine 2024:Fixing the Future Collective

Zine created by Fixing the Future Collective. Has been printed and displayed at Designing Interactive Systems Conference Zine Library in Copenhagen, Denmark (July 2024), at the Workshop on Creating Sustainable IoT Futures also in Copenhagen (July 2024), and at ICT4S in Stockholm Sweden (June 2024)

Fixing the Future Annual Report 2024

Annual Report for the Fixing the Future Project. Full Citation: Urquhart, L. Stead, M. Sailaja, N. Darzentas, D. Terras, M. Lechelt, S. Luger, E. Coulton, P.Lindley, J. Boniface, C. D McAuley. Castle-Green, T. Pilling, M. Primlani, N. and D Kilic “Fixing the Future Annual Report 2024

Infrastructures for Virtual Volunteering at Online Music Festivals

Volunteering benefits recipients, volunteers, communities, and society, while digital technologies establish new opportunities for virtual volunteering. We describe how volunteers transitioned the UK's long-established Oxjam grassroots music festival online in response to the COVID pandemic, delivering a local pilot before scaling up nationwide. We adopt an infrastructural perspective to reveal how two teams of volunteers defined a flexible festival format, knitted together diverse technologies into a technical platform, and operated this to deliver the festival. We highlight the need for teams of volunteers to orchestrate both audience and performer trajectories through festivals. We argue for deliberately designing in volunteer labour rather than automating it out by translating traditional roles online while defining new digital ones. We propose to make these roles rewarding through a more social volunteer experience, including privileged backstage access. We highlight the challenges of using social media for such events, including complying with algorithmic policing of rights