Presentation at HCII 2014.

1. Towards a Design Space for
Ubiquitous Computing
Ilya Shmorgun, David Lamas
Institute of Informatics
Tallinn University
Supported by the Tiger University Program of the Information Technology
Foundation for Education.

2. Introduction
• While the field of ubiquitous computing is quite mature, it
lacks robust analytical tools devoted to design.
• Design issues are commonly being solved on a case-by-case
basis in small teams, where it is sufficiently easy to convey
ideas.
• There appears to be a need for means of helping
interaction designers better understand the potential
options available to them for the design of ubicomp
systems and the reasons for choosing among those options.
• One such potential means is the ubiquitous computing
design space.
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3. Procedure
• The design space is a result of a literature review, which
was guided by the question: “What constitutes the field of
ubiquitous computing?”
• Additional questions were related to the main challenges,
issues, focus areas, and technologies being used.
• Articles from international peer-reviewed journals and
conference proceedings were collected in ACM Digital
Library, IEEE Computer Society, and Springer Link, in
addition to several books from Amazon.com.
• The findings were structured with the help of the QOC
notation, which is part of the design space rationale
approach, proposed by Maclean et al.
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4. Design Space
• The design space can be presented as a node-and-link
diagram or in tabular form.
• The Questions are related to characteristics, enabling
technologies, design challenges, design goals, and
quality attributes.
• Options are presented as potential answers to the
Questions, and Criteria argue for or against the
Options.
• Criteria arguing for the Options are connected with a
full line or are marked with a “+” in the table, the
Options arguing against are marked with a dashed line
or a “-”.
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5. Example Visualization of the Design
Space
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6. Examples of Use
• The design space was used in the LearnMix project, where
suitable Options were selected based on the project’s
design values.
• The Options were ranked by using a 3-point scale to
identify their relevance to the project.
• The results suggest that it is important to focus on
designing a system reliant on embedded infrastructure,
enabled by multimedia, alternative forms input, low-power
high-performance processors, communications, and web
technologies. The main design challenge is to understand
user needs with a goal of augmenting existing practices and
with attention to usability.
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7. Discussion
• The design space does not provide answers to
all possible issues and should be further
matured through use.
• Alternative forms of visualizing the design
space could be explored as existing
approaches do not work well with too many
Options and Criteria.
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8. Conclusion
• The proposed design space attempts to map the
status quo of ubiquitous computing and provide a
way of exploring possible directions without
premature commitment.
• The design space aims to present potential design
goals, characteristics, challenges, technologies,
and quality attributes to be used by ubicomp
designers.
• It is up to the designer to select the Options
based on the requirements of a particular
project.
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