Readings

There are no required texts for this course. Weekly readings are as follows.

• Week 1: Introduction to the IoT and Connected Products
• Week 2: Design Methods
• Week 3: Understanding Ambience
• Week 4: Envisioning Connectivity in the Home
• Week 5: Considering Connectivity
• Week 6: Looking to the Future
• Week 7: No readings

Reading Summaries

For each assigned reading, you will complete a short reading reflection (200-300 words). This should summarize and critique the main points of the text, as well as draw connections to other texts and ideas introduced through this course.

Reading reflections are due weekly.

Week 1: Introduction to the IoT and Connected Products

Mark Weiser (1991) The computer for the 21st century. Scientific American, pp. 94–104.

Context: Weiser's paper is the cananonical introduction to the ubiqutious computing vision. Introduced in 1991, it explores paradigm shifts required for and future directions in computing that lead to the IoT and connected environments we're familiar with today.

Framing Questions:

• Why is the notion of a ‘personal’ computer misplaced and why should computing ‘disappear’?
• Weiser’s paper closes with the statement: “Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.” Why is this significant?
• The article is now more than 25 years old. How does Weiser’s vision align with the world of connectivity, embeded and smart computing that we have today. Have we achieved the vision or is there work remaining?

Prolog, Chapter 1, and Chapter 4 from David Rose (2014) Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and The Internet of Things, Scribner

Context: David Rose introduced some of the earliest commercially available internet appliances. He founded Ambient Devices and produced the ambient orb and umbrella and went on to found Vitality a company that produced a smart pill cap to help enhance adherance to medications. This book is design-centered exploring at the strategies, considerations, and approaches for successful interactions and the creation of beloved internet appliances.

Framing Questions:

• Much lke Weiser, Roses offers a critique of personal computing. How do they overlap and what are the differences?
• “What is the most natural and desirable-even invisible-way for human beings to interact with technology without requiring a new set of skills or constantly needing to learn new languages, gestures, icons, color codes, or button combinations?” Why is this a fundamental question that informs the design of IoT applications?
• Why are trends for internet appliances and why are enchanted objects ‘avatar for services’?
• “The enchanted objects that will succeed will be the ones that carry on the traditions and promises of the objects of our age-old fantasies, the ones that connect with and satisfy our fundamental human desires.” Do you agree?

Further Reading (Optional)

• Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell, 2008. Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Notes on Ubiquitous Computing’s Dominant Vision. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

• Abowd, G. and Mynatt, B. 2000. Charting Past, Present, and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing, ACM Trans. Computer-Human Interaction;

• Ishii, H. and Ullmer, B. 1997. Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits, and Atoms. Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI 1997 (Atlanta, GA);

• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press. Chapter 2, Where the Action Is;

• Michael Chui, Markus Löffler, and Roger Roberts. 2010. The Internet of Things, McKinsey Quarterly

• The Secret Life of Electronic Objects - A Dunne, F Raby (2002) Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects

Week 2: Prototyping Smart Products

Chapter 5: Designing Meta Products, Sara Cordoba Rubino, Wimer Hazenburg, Menno Huisman (2011) Meta Products: Meaningful Design for our Connected World. BIS Publishers.

Context: Designing Meta Products considers how to design interactive product ecosystems in a world where information is entangled between many actors, services, spaces and contexts.

Framing Questions:

• If our golden rule is ‘know your materials’; what does mastry of materials when designing internet appliances entail?
• What is ‘network centered design’ and what (broadly) is involved?
• Do you believe this network centered approach is a useful design framework? How would you apply it in your projects?

The Design of Enchantment - Part III, from David Rose (2014) Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and The Internet of Things, Scribner.

Context: We return to Rose's text to explore how he envisions the design of Enchanted objects

Framing Questions:

• Why are glanceability, gestureability, affordability, wearability, indestructibility, usability, and loveability important qualities for smart products?
• What is the ‘Ladder of Enchantment’?
• How does this framework for enchantment help engender trust and desire in smart products?

Further Reading (Optional)

• Follett, Jonathan. Designing for emerging technologies: UX for genomics, robotics, and the internet of things. “ O’Reilly Media, Inc.”, 2014.

• Ian Bach. 2013. Designing Connected Products

• Chapter 3, The Move to Information Appliances. Don Norman, The Invisible Computer, 1999, MIT Press

• Chapter 8, Why is everything so difficult to use. Don Norman, The Invisible Computer, 1999, MIT Press

• Chapter 11. Disruptive Technologies from Donald A. Norman. 1998. The Invisible Computer. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.

• Josh Clark, 2014. Mind the Gap: Designing Interaction Between Connected Devices http://conferences.oreilly.com/solid/solid2014/public/schedule/detail/33398

Week 3: Understanding Ambience

Chapter 2. Principles of Calm Technology. Case, Amber. Calm technology: principles and patterns for non-intrusive design. “ O’Reilly Media, Inc.”, 2015.

Context: introduces the key concepts and principles that are required to design a device that operates in the periphery. These are illustrated through various examples of calm tech as well as links to theory and scholarship.

Framing Questions:

• How would you define an ‘calm technology’? Why does ambience or calmness matter for IoT and smart computing?
• What are the key goals and design principles aused to inform ambience?
• Where/when do you envision ambient information being useful?

Rogers Y, Hazlewood W, Marshall P, Dalton NS, Hertrich S, (2010) Ambient Influence: Can Twinkly Lights Lure and Abstract Representations Trigger Behavioral Change?, UbiComp 2010

Context: This paper presents a study of three ambient devices designed to persuade or change behavior in a workplace setting.

Framing Questions:

• How do you respond to the idea of ‘ambient influence’: moving from informational to persuasive displays of information?
• In your mind were the outcomes successful? Is this a useful strategy to motivate behavior change?

Further Reading (Optional)

• Weiser, M., and Brown, J,. Designing Calm Technology, PowerGrid Journal, vl.01, July 1996. http://www.ubiq.com/weiser/calmtech/calmtech.htm

• McCullough, Malcolm. Ambient commons: Attention in the age of embodied information. Mit Press, 2013.

• Andrew Vande Moere. 2008. Beyond the Tyranny of the Pixel: Exploring the Physicality of Information Visualization. In Proceedings of the 2008 12th International Conference Information Visualisation (IV ‘08). IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA, 469-474.

• Zachary Pousman and John Stasko. 2006. A taxonomy of ambient information systems: four patterns of design. In Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces (AVI ‘06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 67-74.

• Bakker, S., & Niemantsverdriet, K. (2016). The interaction-attention continuum: Considering various levels of human attention in interaction design. International Journal of Design, 10(2), 1-14.

• Jennifer Mankoff, Anind K. Dey, Gary Hsieh, Julie Kientz, Scott Lederer, and Morgan Ames. 2003. Heuristic evaluation of ambient displays. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘03). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 169-176.

Below is a series of examples of ambient interfaces and approaches

• Chapter 16, Nabaztag, an Ambiguous Avatar, from Mike Kuniavsky (2010) Smart Things, Ubiquitous Computing User Experience Design, Elsevier

• Nassim Jafarinaimi, Jodi Forlizzi, Amy Hurst, and John Zimmerman. 2005. Breakaway: an ambient display designed to change human behavior. In CHI ‘05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ‘05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1945-1948.

• A. Taylor, S. Izadi, L. Swan, B. Buxton, and R. Harper, Building Bowls for Miscellaneous Media, in Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Physicality (Physicality 2006), July 2006

• John Kestner, Daniel Leithinger, Jaekyung Jung, and Michelle Petersen. 2009. Proverbial wallet: tangible interface for financial awareness. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI ‘09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 55-56.

• Karin Kappel and Thomas Grechenig. 2009. “show-me”: water consumption at a glance to promote water conservation in the shower. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (Persuasive ‘09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, , Article 26 , 6 pages.

Week 4: Envisioning Connectivity in the Home

Genevieve Bell and Joseph Kaye, Designing Technology for Domestic Spaces: A Kitchen Manifesto, Gastronomica, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring 2002), pp. 46-62

Context: Genevieve Bell has written extensively on the need to considering the 'messiness' of the world around us, as well as social and cultural considerations, in today's IoT e.g. 'Divining a Digital Mess'. This paper explores the introduction of 'smart' domestic technology through the lens of the kitchen.

Framing Questions:

• “Most new domestic technologies embody notions of efficiency—designed to improve time and resource management.” Why is a focus on efficiency, ergonomics and simplicity problematic in the design of domestic technology?
• Compare and contrast the corporate vision of ‘smart homes’ offered on page 52 and the case studies in Italy and German (pages 55-57), what are the differences and distinctions?
• “We have argued that it is necessary to disentangle the kitchen—and by extension other domestic spaces—from the relentless rhetoric and logic of the smart house.” Why is this the case and do you agree?

Desjardins, Audrey, Jeremy E. Viny, Cayla Key, and Nouela Johnston. “Alternative Avenues for IoT: Designing with Non-Stereotypical Homes.” In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-13. 2019.

Context: A 2019 article that questions the need to reconsider the dominant visions and normative positions of the smart home. Article focuses on the question "What new avenues for domestic IoT arise when designing with non-stereotypical homes?"

Framing Questions:

• What problems in how we position the vision and values of ‘the smart home’ does this paper reveal?
• “we invite designers and researchers to pay close attention to (and to acknowledge) what home they are designing within when they are designing or researching IoT in ‘the home’” With reference to the text, why is it important to pay close attention to ‘the home’?
• Why does agency between ‘people, artifacts, and space in the home’ matter for the systems that we design?

Further Reading (Optional)

• Bjorn Nansen, Luke van Ryn, Frank Vetere, Toni Robertson, Margot Brereton, and Paul Dourish. 2014. An internet of social things. In Proceedings of the 26th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Designing Futures: the Future of Design (OzCHI ‘14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 87-96.

• Domesticity and Its Discontents, Chapter 8, Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell, 2011. Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.

• Genevieve Bell, Mark Blythe, and Phoebe Sengers. 2005. Making by making strange: Defamiliarization and the design of domestic technologies. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.12, 2 (June 2005), 149-173.

• Chris Dodge. 1997. The bed: a medium for intimate communication. In CHI ‘97 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ‘97). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 371-372.

• Joseph ‘Jofish’ Kaye, Mariah K. Levitt, Jeffrey Nevins, Jessica Golden, and Vanessa Schmidt. 2005. Communicating intimacy one bit at a time. In CHI ‘05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ‘05). ACM, New York, NY, USA.

Week 5: Considering Connectivity

Section 7: How might we safeguard our prerogatives in an everyday world? Adam Greenfield. 2006. Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing. Peachpit Press, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Context: Greenfield's 2006 book poses a series of short reflections on the (potential) impact of Ubiquitous computing. He critically examines the questions _we should ask_ of these technologies as they become more prevalent. It's a fascinating read and provides an excellent lens on the technical, moral, social and ethical considerations involved in designing and deploying IoT solutions.

Framing Questions:

• Based on this text, are our prerogatives being safeguarded by today’s consumer IoT? Why?
• Why and how should everywhere default to harmlessness?
• It closes: “These principles are necessary but not sufficient: they constitute not an end, but a beginning.”. What other safeguards do you believe are needed?
• After finishing this text return to the question originally posed at the start of the chapter: “How can we as designers, users, consumers, ensure that everywhere contains provisions preserving our quality of life and safeguarding our fundamental perogatives?”

Krishna, Golden. The best interface is no interface: The simple path to brilliant technology. Pearson Education, 2015.

Context: Golden Krishna's tongue-in-cheek take on designing smart devices and Zero-UI experiences explores the problems, principles and challenges of this vision. This sharp, witty and insightful critique of emerging technology underscores the problems and perils of screen-based user experience and designing systems that automate our world.

Framing Questions:

• Based on this text, how is user experience design failing it’s users, the industry and smart products being produced today?
• What is wrong with relying on automation in IoT?
• Why is failure an important component of No-UI design?

Further Reading (Optional)

• Section 4: What are the Issues we need to be aware of, Adam Greenfield. 2006. Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing. Peachpit Press, Berkeley, CA, USA.

• Mat Honan, The Nightmare on Connected Home Street, Wired, http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-nightmare-on-connected-home-street/

• Steven Sinofsky. 2015. Patience, IoT Is the New “Electronic”

• Chapter 6: Hertzian Space from Anthony Dunne. 2006. Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design. The MIT Press.

• Ray Bradbury. The Veldt

Week 6: Future Connections

Contextualizing Ubiquitous Computing, Chapter 2, Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell, 2011. Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Context: We revisit Week 1 and Weiser's UbiComp vision with 'a manifesto and partly a progress report' by Dourish and Bell. They critically reflect on the state of Ubicomp to explore what might and should come next.

Framing Questions:

• “Today, ubicomp research is characterized primarily by a concern with potential future computational worlds—what we call the “proximate future””. From the authors’ perspective, what is the problem with the proximate future and how should we understand the relationship between ubicomp’s envisioned future and our everyday present?
• Why is ubicomp all about messiness and why is this messiness important?
• In your opinion, is the lens better set the present or the future when we envision internet appliances?

Six Future Fantasies - from from David Rose (2014) Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and The Internet of Things, Scribner.

Context: In the closing chapter of Rose's Enchanted Objects, he speculates on six ways internet appliances will change the way we encounter technology in our lives

Framing Questions:

• What are the 6 fantasties (on-demand, calm, hackability, learning, digital shadows, and subversion)?
• How much of these fantasies has already arrived, and how much do we still need to design?
• Do you share Rose’s optimism that they’ll lead us into “enchanted realms and ecosystems that impact how we live, learn, and interact with each other and the world” Why?

Further Reading (Optional)

• Reimagining Ubiquitous Computing: A Conclusion, Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell, 2011. Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.

• Chapter 7 - the Future of Everyday Things, The design of future things, by D. A. Norman, basic books, New York, NY, USA.
• Transformations in Interaction (starting at page 32). Harper, R., Rodden, T., Rogers, Y., and Sellen, A. Being Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the Year 2020. Microsoft Research, Cambridge, U.K., 2008.
• Ublopia or Otivion - from Stirling, B. Shaping Things, Mediaworks Pamphlets. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005.
• Laura Forlano, 2013. Ethnographies from the Future: What can ethnographers learn from science fiction and speculative design?