Habitats: A Simple Way to Bridge Artifacts, Professions, and Theories in Ubiquitous Design

Abstract

This paper briefly shows how product designers as well as information system designers may use the habitat framework as a tool to inform their understanding of the pervasive computing systems they are designing. This is done by (1) introducing the basic elements of habitats, (2) analyzing and comparing two empirical case-studies, one about life and death (emergency response at major incidents) and one about playfulness (children's pervasive play and gaming), and (3) discussing the usefulness of using habitats. The result is a number of real-world examples where we argue that using habitats as a simple common ground seems to be useful for professionals coming from quite different traditions.