Designing, Developing, Evaluating the Invisible? - Usability Evaluation and Software Development in Ubiquitous Computing Tom Gross Faculty of Media Bauhaus-University Weimar Bauhausstr. 11, 99423 Weimar, Germany [phone]

Abstract

This position paper for the 2nd International Workshop on the Interplay between Usability Evaluation and Software Development (I-USED 2009) introduces some strengths of Ubiquitous Computing as well as some challenges it entails for the software development and usability evaluation; i n particular it presents a user-centred design process for ubiquitous computing. Human Factors.

-

H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and P r e s e n t a t i o n ] : User Interfaces – Evaluation/Methodology; Prototyping; UserCentred Design.

General Terms

1. INTRODUCTION

Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) provides new opportunities and poses new challenges to software development and the usability evaluation. According to Mark Weiser who coined this term, UbiComp ‘enhances computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, while making them effectively invisible to the user’ [ 11 ]. Instead of explicit input from devices such as a keyboard or a mouse, UbiComp systems typically get implicit input from users’ interaction with their physical environment through everyday objects. Besides the advantages of the resulting invisibility and unobtrusiveness for the users, UbiComp entails a variety of challenges for their software development and usability evaluation.

2. CHALLENGES

The challenges that are mentioned in the literature include both the general unobtrusiveness [ 2 ], but also the complex interactions that make use of natural input technologies [ 2 ] with a great number of interaction partners [ 4 ] and through distributed devices [ 3 ] in a large physical space [ 4 ]. The fact that UbiComp is often seen as everyday computing, which i s ‘characterised by continuously present, integrative, and unobtrusive interaction’ [ 1 ] induces further challenges such as highly mobile users [ 3, 5 ], interaction on small devices [ 3 ], timing difficulties through concurring interactions [ 10 ], and environmental factors that cannot be controlled [ 6 ].

3. SOLUTIONS

Methods from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have already been integrated into software development life cycles, but the process of finding and integrating designated methods into the UbiComp development life cycle is still in its early stages. In HCI, for instance, Jokela [ 8, 9 ] has extended the ISO 13407 standard ‘ISO 13407: 1999 - Human-Centred Design Processes for Interactive Systems’ [ 7 ]. This ISO 13407 regulates the design processes of the four phases: understanding and specifying the context of use, specifying the requirements, producing design results, and evaluating the design against the requirements in a loop from the first phase to the last, and then restarting with the first phase in an iterative cycle. We have extended and adapted this life cycle to fit to the specific needs of UbiComp (cf. Figure 1).

A general challenge in integrating methods into the design and development life cycle for UbiComp is to find or define natural and unobtrusive methods that reflect the nature and characteristics of UbiComp and everyday computing. In this 2nd International Workshop on the Interplay between Usability Evaluation and Software Development (I-USED 2009) workshop I would be particularly interested in discussing new approaches for the integration of usability concepts and methods into the software development processes—including traditional single-user systems, cooperative systems as well as particularly UbiComp systems.

4. CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the members of the Cooperative Media Lab—especially to Christoph Beckmann and Maximilian Schirmer.

References

[1] Abowd , G.D. and Mynatt , E. Charting Past, Present, and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 7 , 1 (Sept. 2000 ). pp. 29 - 58 .

[2] Carter , S. and Mankoff , J. Prototypes in the Wild: Lessons from Three Ubicomp Systems . IEEE Pervasive Computing 4 , 4 ( 2005 ). pp. 51 - 57 .

[3] Crabtree , A. , Benford , S. , Greenhalgh , C. , Tennent , P. , Chalmers , M. and Brown , B. Supporting Ethnographic Studies of Ubiquitous Computing in the Wild . In Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Designing Interactive Systems - DIS 2006 (Jun . 26 - 28 , University Park, PA, USA). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2006 . pp. 60 - 6 9 .

[4] Dey , A.K. Evaluation of Ubiquitous Computing Systems: Evaluating the Predictability of Systems . In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing - UbiComp 2001 (Sept . 30 -Oct. 2 , Atlanta , GA , USA). Springer-Verlag, 2001 .

[5] Froehlich , J. , Chen , M.Y. , Consolvo , S. , Harrison , B. and Landay , J.A. MyExperience: A System for In Situ Tracing and Capturing of User Feedback on Mobile Phones . In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Mobile Systems , Applications and Services - MobiSys 2007 (Jun . 11 - 14 , San Juan, Puerto Rico). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2007 . pp. 57 - 70 .

[6] Iachello , G. , Truong , K.N. , Abowd , G.D. , Hayes , G.R. and Stevens , M. Prototyping and Sampling Experience to Evaluate Ubiquitous Computing Privacy in the Real World . In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI 2006 (Apr . 24 - 27 , Montreal, Quebec, Canada). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2006 . pp. 1009 - 1018 .

[7] ISO. ISO 13407 : 1999 - Human-Centred Design Processes for Interactive Systems . ISO - International Organisation for Standardisation, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalo gue_detail. htm?csnumber=21197 , 2008 . ( Accessed 24 /4/2009).

[8] Jokela , T. Making User-Centred Design Common Sense : Striving for an Unambiguous and Communicative UCD Process Model . In 2nd Nordic Conference on HumanComputer Interaction - NordiCHI 2002 (Oct. 19 - 23 , Aarhus, Denmark). ACM, N.Y., 2002 . pp. 19 - 26 .

[9] Jokela , T. A Method-Independent Process Model of UserCentred Design . In Hammond, J., Gross , T. and Wesson , J., eds. Usability: Gaining a Competitive Edge . Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dortrecht, NL , 2002 . pp. 23 - 38 .

[10] Kellar , M. , Reilly , D. , Hawkey , K. , Rodgers , M. , MacKay , B. , Dearman , D. , Ha , V. , MacInnes , W.J., Nunes , M. , Parker , K. , Whalen , T. and Inkpen , K.M. It's a Jungle Out There: Practical Considerations for Evaluation in the City . In Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI 2005 (Apr. 2-7 , Portland, OR , USA). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2005 . pp. 1533 - 1536 .

[11] Weiser , M. Some Computer Science Issues in Ubiquitous Computing . Communications of the ACM 36 , 7 ( July 1993 ). pp. 75 - 84 .