Designing for high expectations: balancing ambiguity and thorough specification in the design of a wayfinding tool for firefighters

Authors:
Leonardo Ramirez;Tobias Dyrks
Affiliations:
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, Sankt Augustin, Germany and University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany;Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, Sankt Augustin, Germany and University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany
Venue:
Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
Year:
2010

Citing 16
Cited 2

Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication

Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication
What we talk about when we talk about context

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
A Historical View of Context

Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts

Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts
Staying open to interpretation: engaging multiple meanings in design and evaluation

DIS '06 Proceedings of the 6th conference on Designing Interactive systems
The history tablecloth: illuminating domestic activity

DIS '06 Proceedings of the 6th conference on Designing Interactive systems
Enhancing ubiquitous computing with user interpretation: field testing the home health horoscope

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Threshold devices: looking out from the home

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Handy navigation in ever-changing spaces: an ethnographic study of firefighting practices

Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on Designing interactive systems
Interactionist AI and the promise of ubicomp, or, how to put your box in the world without putting the world in your box

UbiComp '08 Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Ubiquitous computing
Ultrasound-aided pedestrian dead reckoning for indoor navigation

Proceedings of the first ACM international workshop on Mobile entity localization and tracking in GPS-less environments
A conceptual framework and a toolkit for supporting the rapid prototyping of context-aware applications

Human-Computer Interaction
Tactile wayfinder: a non-visual support system for wayfinding

Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridges
Designing user interaction with robots swarms in emergency settings

Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridges
Towards human-centered support for indoor navigation

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Letting tools talk: interactive technology for firefighting

CHI '09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Engaging with practices: design case studies as a research framework in CSCW

Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Landmarke: an ad hoc deployable ubicomp infrastructure to support indoor navigation of firefighters

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Ambiguity has been identified as a useful tool for designing ubicomp systems. In the design of safety critical systems, however, the expectations for a system are particularly high, and goals of the technology are rigidly defined. In this context is not clear if open ended systems can still be used as a tool for design. In this paper we present a detailed account of the design process of an indoor wayfinding support tool for firefighters, in which ambiguity played a central role in driving the construction of the system. Based on an ongoing work covering more than a year of close collaboration with a heterogeneous team of project partners, we present some implications of using ambiguity for designing ubiquitous computing solutions in a domain that traditionally requires more formal specifications for the construction of technology.