Article

Historical analysis: using the past to design the future

Authors:

Phoebe Sengers,

Rebecca E. GrinterAuthors Info & Claims

UbiComp'06: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Ubiquitous Computing

Pages 35 - 51

https://doi.org/10.1007/11853565_3

Published: 17 September 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Ubicomp developers are increasingly borrowing from other disciplines, such as anthropology and creative design, to inform their design process. In this paper, we demonstrate that the discipline of history similarly has much to offer ubicomp research. Specifically, we describe a historically-grounded approach to designing ubicomp systems and applications for the home. We present findings from a study examining aging and housework that demonstrate how our approach can be useful to sensitize ubicomp developers to the impact of cultural values on household technology, to reunderstand the home space, and to spur development of new design spaces. Our findings suggest that historically-grounded research approaches may be useful in more deeply understanding and designing for context both in and outside of the home.

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cover image ACM Other conferences

UbiComp'06: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Ubiquitous Computing

September 2006

526 pages

ISBN:9783540396345

Editors:
Paul Dourish
Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA
,
Adrian Friday
Computing Department, Lancaster University, InfoLab 2, South Drive, Lancaster, CA, UK

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Google Inc.
Nokia
Microsoft: Microsoft
Intel: Intel
IBM: IBM

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Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 17 September 2006

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UbiComp'06 Paper Acceptance Rate 30 of 204 submissions, 15%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 764 of 2,912 submissions, 26%

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