Infx 242/CS 248B: Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction: Readings

This is a rough outline of the readings for the class, although it will evolve as discuss the material. However, it should keep us at least roughly on track.

Week 1: Introduction

I want to start off by looking at ubiquitous computing not so much as a radical departure from previous practice, but rather as a further step in a gradual process of expanding the range of natural skills and abilities upon which interactive technologies draw.

• Weiser, M. 1991. The Computer for the 21st Century Scientific American, September, 94-100.
• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press. Chapter 1.

Week 2: Tangible Interaction

We'll start off at the small scale, thinking about interaction with physically embodied interfaces. This is the arena of "tangible interaction", manifested most significantly in the "Tangible Bits" program initiated by Hiroshi Ishii at the MIT Media Lab, although it has spread to many sites since then.

• 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).
• Hornecker, E. and Buur, J. 2006. Getting a Grip on Tangible Interaction: A Framework on Physical Space and Social Interaction. Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI 2006 (Montreal, Canada).
• Klemmer, S., Hartman, B., and Takayama, L. 2006. How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design. Proc. ACM Conf. Designing Interactive Systems DIS 2006 (University Park, PA).
• Moen, J. 2007. From Hand-Held to Body-Worn: Embodied Experiences and the Design and Use of a Wearable Movement-based Interaction Concept. Proc. Conf. Tangible and Embodied Interaction TEI 2007 (Baton Rouge, LA.)
• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press. Chapter 2.

Leading the Thursday discussion: Silvia and Amy.

Week 3: Social Computing and the Production of Social Order

Tangible interfaces are physically embodied, but the concept of embodied interaction extends beyond this to include a particular perspective on social interaction. I want to talk about the ways in which we can think about the relationship between social action and interactive systems -- not simply the "social consequences" of interaction, or even the idea that people might use computer systems "together," but to think about the production of social realities, and to think about information technologies as means of social and cultural production.

• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press. Chapter 3.
• Miller, D. and Slater, D. The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach. Chapter 1.
• Crafting Participation: Designing Ecologies, Configuring Experience. Visual Communication, 1(1):9-33.
• Mainwaring, S., Chang, M., and Anderson, K. 2004. Infrastructures and their Discontents: Implications for Ubicomp. Proc. Ubicomp 2004.

Leading the Thursday discussion: Marisa and Sameer.

Week 4: Sociality/Beyond Efficiency and Usability

We'll start off this week by extending some of last week's discussions with sociality as an aspect of technological practice, looking more specifically at technologies around which social practice evolves. This will lead us into some broader questions of the sorts of values enshrined in technologies as we move out of the traditional office setting. HCI has traditionally been concerned with usability and efficiency, focusing on the ways in which we can build interactive technologies that can be used easily, quickly, and conveniently. These concerns make sense when technology is deployed in work settings, and where workplace productivity is an important value. When we move technology into other settings, though, it's important to recognise the different value systems at work. What might it mean to design interactive systems around surprise, mystery, engagement, intimacy, or other considerations?

For Tuesday:

• Dourish, P., Anderson, K., and Nafus, D. 2007. Cultural Mobilities: Diversity and Agency in Urban Computing Proc. INTERACT 2007.
• Ito, M. and Okabe, D. 2005. Technosocial Situations: Emergent Structures of Mobile Email Use. In Ito, Matsuda and Okabe (eds.), Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. MIT Press.
• Tolmie, P., Pycock, J., Diggins, T., MacLean, A., and Karsenty, A. 2002. Unremarkable Computing. Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI 2002.

Leading Tuesday's discussion: Ersin and Jungmin.

For Thursday:

• Schiphorst, T., Nack, F., KauwATjoe, M., de Bakker, S., Stock, Aroyo, L., Rosillio, A. P., Schut, H., and Jaffe, N. 2007. PillowTalk: can we afford intimacy? Proc. Conf. Tangible and Embedded Interaction TEI 2007 (Baton Rouge, LA).
• Spigel, L. 2005. Designing the Smart House: Posthuman Domesticity and Conspicuous Production. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 8(4), 403-426.
• Bell, G., Blythe, M., and Sengers, P. 2005. Making by Making Strange: Defamiliarization and the Design of Domestic Technologies. Proc. ACM Trans. Computer-Human Interaction.

Leading the discussion: Jae and Arun.

Week 5: No classes

No class this week; I'll be away at the CHI conference.

Week 6: Foundations

We've spend some time now looking at different perspectives on interaction with and through ubiquitous computing, considering the questions at different levels from physical interaction to cultural interpretation. This week, I want to explore some foundational material that attempts to pull all this together, developing a "practice-oriented" view of interaction in ubicomp settings. The material for this week will come from the book.

For Tuesday:

• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press. Chapter 4.

For Thursday:

• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press. Chapter 5.

Week 7: No classes

No class this week; I'll be away at the Ubicomp 2007 PC meeting and then the Pervasive Computing conference. However, drafts or outlines of your term papers are due at the end of this week, so you'll have plenty to do in my absence.

Week 8: Foundations (contd.)

This week, we'll continue our discussions of foundations, and then explore a couple of papers in terms of these ideas about emergence and interaction.

For Tuesday:

• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press. Chapter 5.

For Thursday:

• Barkhuus, L., Chalmers, M., Tennent, P., Hall, M., Bell, M., Sherwood, S., and Brown, B. 2005. Picking Pockets on the Lawn: The Development of Tactics and Strategies in a Mobile Game. Proc. Ubicomp 2005 (Tokyo, Japan).
• Klemmer, S., Hartman, B., and Takayama, L. 2006. How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design. Proc. ACM Conf. Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2006). (Note: We had this one earlier but we didn't discuss it much, and I think it'd be useful to return to it with more theory to draw upon. Please do re-read it, because I think you'll get new ideas out of it in light of more recent discussions.)

Leading Thursday's discussion: Phong and Amy.

Week 9: Critical Technical Practices

Readings this week focus on a different way of connecting theory to design, through what Agre has termed "Critical Technical Practice."

For Tuesday:

• Agre, P. 1997. Toward a Critical Technical Practice: Lessons Learned in Trying to Reform AI. In Bowker et a, "Bridging the Great Divide: Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work."
• Lillie, J. 2004. Technotopic Narratives and Networked Subjects: Preparations for Everyday Life in Cooltown. American Communication Journal, 7(1).

Leading Thursday's discussion: Marisa and Ersin.

For Thursday:

• Sengers, P., Kaye, J., Boehner, K., Fairbank, J., Gay, G., Medynskiy, Y., and Wyche, S. 2004. Culturally Embedded Computing. IEEE Pervasive Computing, Jan-Mar, 14-21.
• Sengers, P., Boehner, K., David, S., and Kaye, J. 2005. Reflective Design. Proc. Fourth Decennial Aarhus Conference on Critical Computing, Aarhus, Denmark.

Leading Thursday's discussion: Silvia and Sameer.

Week 10: Design, Wrap-up

We'll conclude this week by coming back to the question of how to link these ideas to design practice and to specific technological settings.

For Tuesday:

• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Chapters 6-7.

No class on Thursday: term papers due Friday.