Authors: Paul Dourish
Publish Date: 2003/12/05
Volume: 8, Issue: 1, Pages: 19-30
Abstract
The emergence of ubiquitous computing as a new design paradigm poses significant challenges for humancomputer interaction HCI and interaction design Traditionally HCI has taken place within a constrained and wellunderstood domain of experience—single users sitting at desks and interacting with conventionallydesigned computers employing screens keyboards and mice for interaction New opportunities have engendered considerable interest in “contextaware computing”—computational systems that can sense and respond to aspects of the settings in which they are used However considerable confusion surrounds the notion of “context”—what it means what it includes and what role it plays in interactive systems This paper suggests that the representational stance implied by conventional interpretations of “context” misinterprets the role of context in everyday human activity and proposes an alternative model that suggests different directions for designThe ideas expressed here have benefited from discussions with many people including Gregory Abowd Saul Greenberg Tom Moran David Redmiles Tom Rodden Dave Snowdon Dag Svanaes and Jack Whalen I am also grateful to participants at the FX PAL Workshop on Mobile Services and the HCI Consortium on Pervasive Computing both held in 2001 for their contributions This work has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation through awards 0133749 0205724 and 0326105
Keywords: