User-Centered Design: lessons for wearable and ubiquitous computing

In his 1986 book “User Centered System Design”, Don Norman pointed out that for users “the interface IS the system”. Designing systems for users should therefore start with and be driven by the interaction between users and systems. In the last 25 years much has been learned about the nature of this interaction and ways of successfully designing systems in a user-centered way. But much of this work was focused on traditional single-user desktop or more recently mobile systems.

While wearable and ubiquitous computing technologies are subject of research for some time now, large-scale deployments and main-stream usage are still very much in their beginning. Besides this novelty, wearable computing also offers a potentially more intimate relationship with its users, and ubiquitous computing, as the name suggests, is of a more pervasive and dislocated nature [1].

In sum, designing wearable and ubiquitous computing involves a significantly increased number of design options and the resulting systems are much harder to assess in terms of their impact and implications. Both the increased potential benefits and the potential risks involved warrant looking for new approaches that address the specific challenges of successfully designing wearable and ubiquitous computing in a user-centered way.

An illustrative example of the advanced support that could be provided through wearable and ubiquitous computing is the LifeNet system for tactical navigation support for firefighters [2-3]. This example does not only show the potential of the technologies but also the challenges of designing for a complex, collaborative and highly situated work within a hostile and dangerous environment.

As an approach to designing such complex systems in a user-centered way, the FireSim prototyping and simulation approach has been developed to allow prospective users to gain direct experience of how using these systems would be like in realistic scenarios [4-5]. By allowing users to assess design candidates both early on and throughout a design process, deciding between these candidates and developing appropriate practices of usage is facilitated [1].

Currently, FireSim is used with a number of European emergency services to assess and further develop concepts for advanced future supportive technologies.

References

1.            Klann, M. and M. Geissler, How it may feel: Making firefighters experience future support for tactical navigation, in Pervasive Computing. 2011, IEEE: accepted for publication.

2.            Klann, M., Tactical Navigation Support for Firefighters: the LifeNet ad-hoc Sensor-Network and Wearable System, in Mobile Response, Second International Workshop on Mobile Information Technology for Emergency Response, MobileResponse 2008, J. Löffler and M. Klann, Editors. 2009, Springer: Bonn. p. 41-56.

3.            Klann, M., et al. LifeNet: an Ad-hoc Sensor Network and Wearable System to Provide Firefighters with Navigation Support. in UbiComp: Demos Extended Abstracts. 2007. Innsbruck, Austria.

4.            Klann, M., Playing with Fire: User-Centered Design of Wearable Computing for Emergency Response, in CHI Doctoral Consortium, Extended Abstracts. 2007.

5.            Jarke, M., M. Klann, and W. Prinz, Serious Gaming: The Impact of Pervasive Gaming in Business and Engineering, in Industrial Engineering and Ergonomics: Visions, Concepts, Methods and Tools, C.M. Schlick, Editor. 2009, Springer: Berlin Heidelberg.

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