Methods and guidelines for the design and development of domestic ubiquitous computing applications

Bringing ubiquitous computing applications to home environments is a great challenge. In our research we investigate how applications can be conceived, designed and implemented in such a way that they fit into people’s lives. We describe our experiments on how methods of user centred design and participatory design can be appropriated to elicit users’ requirements and design ideas for ubiquitous computing applications for the home. In particular we report on a study on information presentation using display appliances. In a participatory design process enhanced with technology probes, we individually discussed potential solutions for specific homes with 14 people. Each of the resulting solutions is tailored to suit a single person. For each of these individual solutions we specified prototypes that would accommodate the user’s needs but are generic in its applicability at the same time. Based on this we derived a first set of guidelines for the design of display appliances in the home environment.