Visions, Values, and Videos: Revisiting Envisionings in Service of UbiComp Design for the Home
This work addresses the problem of balancing human values in UbiComp design for the home, offering incremental insights for designers and researchers.
The paper explores tensions between calm and engaging visions of Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) in home design by analyzing public focus group discussions (N=28) on contrasting video scenarios, identifying key values and providing practical design takeaways.
UbiComp has been envisioned to bring about a future dominated by calm computing technologies making our everyday lives ever more convenient. Yet the same vision has also attracted criticism for encouraging a solitary and passive lifestyle. The aim of this paper is to explore and elaborate these tensions further by examining the human values surrounding future domestic UbiComp solutions. Drawing on envisioning and contravisioning, we probe members of the public (N=28) through the presentation and focus group discussion of two contrasting animated video scenarios, where one is inspired by "calm" and the other by "engaging" visions of future UbiComp technology. By analysing the reasoning of our participants, we identify and elaborate a number of relevant values involved in balancing the two perspectives. In conclusion, we articulate practically applicable takeaways in the form of a set of key design questions and challenges.