article

Supporting rapid design and evaluation of pervasive applications: challenges and solutions

Authors:

Christian BeckerAuthors Info & Claims

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Volume 15, Issue 3

Pages 253 - 269

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-010-0332-6

Published: 01 March 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Along with the improvement of the key technologies for pervasive computing, the design of applications itself has emerged as a notable research area. A design should decide which features go into the application of supporting its context-awareness and ascertaining how well those features add value for users with an acceptable user experience. This paper initially identifies the challenges in designing and evaluating pervasive applications. It then presents a condensed survey of prototyping techniques and existing toolkits with the aim of understanding how the design issues have been addressed by research prototypes. At the end, we describe various open issues with suggestions of possible ways to extend the capabilities of current prototyping toolkits.

References

[1]

Satyanarayanan M (2001) Pervasive computing: vision and challenges. IEEE Pers Commun 6(8):10-17.

[2]

Garlan D, Siewiorek DP, Smailagic A, Steenkiste P (2002) Project Aura: toward distraction-free pervasive computing. IEEE Pervas Comput 1(2):22-31.

[3]

Dertouzos ML (1999) The future of computing. Sci Am 281(2):52-55.

[4]

Shafer S, Krumm J, Brumitt B, Meyers B, Czerwinski M, Robbins D (1998) The new Easyliving project at Microsoft Research. In: Proceedings of the joint DARPA/NIST smart spaces workshop, pp 127-130.

[5]

Jones A, Hopper A (2001) The prototype embedded network (PEN). Comput Netw 35:377-390.

[6]

Edwards WK, Bellotti V, Dey AK, Newman MW (2003) Stuck in the middle: the challenges of user-centered design and evaluation for infrastructure. In: Proceedings of CHI 2003, pp 297-304.

[7]

Li Y, Landay JA (2008) Activity-based prototyping of ubicomp applications for long-lived, everyday human activities. In: Proceedings of CHI 2008, pp 1303-1312.

[8]

Li Y, Hong JI, Landay JA (2004) Topiary: a tool for prototyping location-enhanced applications. In: Proceedings of 17th annual ACM symposium user interface software and technology, pp 217-2268.

[9]

Weis T, Knoll M, Ulbrich A, Mühl G, Brändle A (2007) Rapid prototyping for pervasive applications. IEEE Pervasive Comput 6(2):76-84.

[10]

Weiser M (1991) The computer for the 21st century. Sci Am 265(3):94-104.

[11]

Davies N, Landay J, Hudson S, Schmidt A (2005) Guest editors' introduction: rapid prototyping for ubiquitous computing. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(4):15-17.

[12]

Norman DA, Draper SW (1986) User-centered system design: new perspectives on human-computer interaction. Erlbaum, Hillsdale.

[13]

Miller R (2004) User interface design and implementation. Lecture notes. Massachusetts institute of technology.

[14]

John BE, Salvucci DD (2005) Multipurpose prototypes for assessing user interfaces in pervasive computing systems. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(4):27-34.

[15]

Barton JJ, Vijayaraghavan V (2003) UBIWISE, a simulator for ubiquitous computing systems design. Technical report HPL- 2003-93, HP Laboratories.

[16]

Abowd GD, Hayes GR, Iachello G, Kientz JA, Patel SN, Steven MM, Truong KN (2005) Prototypes and paratypes: mixed methods for designing mobile and ubiquitous computing applications. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(4):67-73.

[17]

Lim Y-K, Pangam A, Periyasami S, Aneja S (2006) Comparative analysis of high- and low fidelity prototypes for more valid usability evaluations of mobile devices. In: Proceedings of the 4th Nordic conference on human-computer interaction: changing roles, pp 291-300.

[18]

Consolvo S, Harrison B, Smith I, Mike Chen, Everitt K, Froehlich J, Landay JA (2006) Conducting in situ evaluations for and with ubiquitous computing technologies. Int J Hum Comput Interact 22(1):107-122.

[19]

Holleis P (2008) Integrating usability models into pervasive application development. Doctoral thesis, Ludwig Maximilian Muenchen Unitversitaet, Munich, Germany.

[20]

MacIntyre B, Gandy M, Dow S, Bolter JD (2004) DART: a toolkit for rapid design exploration of augmented reality experiences. In: Proceedings of UIST 2004, pp 197-206.

[21]

Bannach D, Lukowicz P, Amft O (2008) Rapid prototyping of activity recognition applications. IEEE Pervasive Comput 7(2):22-31.

[22]

Guo B, Zhang DQ, Imai M (2010) Towards a cooperative programming framework for context-aware applications. Personal and ubiquitous computing. Springer (to appear).

[23]

Cao XH, Chen JM, Zhang Y, Su YX (2008) Development of an integrated wireless sensor network micro-environment monitoring system. ISA Trans 47(3):247-255.

[24]

Grimm R, Davis J, Lemar E, Macbeth A, Swanson S, Anderson T, Bershad B, Borriello G, Gribble S, Wethrall D (2004) System support for pervasive applications. ACM Trans Comput Syst 22(4):421-486.

[25]

Houde S, Hill C (1997) What do prototypes prototype? In: Helander M, Landauer T, Prabhu P (eds) Handbook of human-computer interaction, 2nd edn. Elsevier, Amsterdam.

[26]

Stringer M, Rode JA, Toye EF, Blackwell AF, Simpson AR (2005) The Webkit tangible user interface: a case study of iterative prototyping. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(4):35-41.

[27]

Fitton D, Cheverst K, Kray C, Dix A, Rouncefield M, Saslis-Lagoudakis G (2005) Rapid prototyping and user-centered design of interactive display based systems. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(4):58-66.

[28]

Carter S, Mankoff J, Klemmer SR, Matthews T (2008) Exiting the cleanroom: on ecological validity and ubiquitous computing. Hum Comput Interact 23(1):47-99.

[29]

Lim Y-K, Stolterman E, Tenenberg J (2008) The anatomy of prototypes: prototypes as filters, prototypes as manifestations of design ideas. ACM Trans Comput Hum Interact 15(2):1-27.

[30]

Tang L, Yu ZW, Zhou XS, Schiele G, Becker C (2010) PerDE: towards a rapid design and evaluation environment for pervasive application. In: Proceedings of The 7th ACM international conference on pervasive services (ICPS2010), Berlin, Germany, July, 13-15 (to appear).

[31]

Bossen C, Jørgensen JB (2004) Context-descriptive prototypes and their application to medicine administration. In: Proceedings of the conference on designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (DIS2004). ACM Press, pp 297-306.

[32]

Liu L, Khooshabeh P (2003) Paper or interactive? A study of prototyping techniques for ubiquitous computing environments. In: Proceedings of CHI 2003, pp 1030-1031.

[33]

Carter S, Mankoff J (2005) Prototypes in the wild: lessons learned from evaluating three ubicomp systems. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(4):51-57.

[34]

Mankoff J, Schilit B (1997) Supporting knowledge workers beyond the desktop with PALplates. In: Proceedings of CHI 1997, pp 550-551.

[35]

Buchenau M, Suri JF (2000) Experience prototyping. In: Proceedings of DIS2000 ACM conference on designing interactive systems, pp 424-433.

[36]

Curtis G, Vertelney L (1990) Storyboards and sketch prototypes for rapid interface visualization. CHI Tutorial, ACM Press, Reading.

[37]

John BE, Prevas K, Salvucci DD, Koedinger K (2004) Predictive human performance modeling made easy. In: Proceedings of CHI 2004, pp 455-462.

[38]

Sohn TY, Dey AK (2003) iCAP: an informal tool for interactive prototyping of context-aware applications. In: Proceedings of CHI 2003, pp 974-975.

[39]

Sohn T, Dey AK (2004) iCAP: rapid prototyping of contex-taware applications. In: Proceedings of CHI 2004, pp 103-129.

[40]

Dey AK, Abowd GD, Salber D (2001) A conceptual framework and a toolkit for supporting the rapid prototyping of contextaware applications. Hum Comput Interact 16(2-4):97-166.

[41]

Hong JI, Landay JA (2001) An infrastructure approach to context-aware computing. Cont Aw Comput HCI J 16:287-303.

[42]

Consolvo S, Amstein L, Franza BR (2002) User study techniques in the design and evaluation of a ubicomp environment. In: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on ubiquitous computing, pp 73-90.

[43]

Gong RJ, Elkerton J (1990) Designing minimal documentation using a GOMS Model: a usability evaluation of an engineering approach. In: Proceedings of CHI 1990, pp 99-106.

[44]

Hartmann B, Klemmer SR, Bernstein M, Abdulla L, Burr B, Robinson-Mosher A, Gee J (2006) Reflective physical prototyping through integrated design, test, and analysis. In: Proceedings of UIST 2006: ACM symposium on user interface software and technology, pp 299-308.

[45]

Anderson JR, Bothell D, Byrne MD, Douglass S, Lebiere C, Qin YL (2004) An integrated theory of the mind. Psychol Rev 111(4):1036-1060.

[46]

Salvucci DD, Lee FJ (2003) Simple cognitive modeling in a complex cognitive architecture. In: Proceedings of CHI 2003, pp 265-272.

[47]

Arnstein L, Hung C-Y, Franza R, Zhou QH, Borriello G, Consolvo S, Su J (2002) Labscape: a smart environment for the cell biology laboratory. IEEE Pervasive Comput 1(3):13-21.

[48]

Sousa JP, Garlan D (2002) Aura: an architectural framework for user mobility in ubiquitous computing environments. In: Proceeding of the 3rd working IEEE/IFIP conference on software architecture, pp 25-31.

[49]

Henricksen K, Indulska J (2006) Developing context-aware pervasive computing applications: models and approach. J Pervasive Mobile Comput 2(1):37-64.

[50]

Bihler P, Brunie L, Scuturici VM (2005) Modeling user intention in pervasive service environments. In: Proceedings of the IFIP-EUC 2005, LNCS, vol 3824, pp 977-986.

[51]

Cypher A (1993) Watch what I do: programming by demonstration. MIT, Cambridge.

[52]

Dey AK, Hamid R, Beckmann C, Li I, Hsu D (2004) a CAPpella: programming by demonstration of context-aware applications. In: Proceedings of CHI 2004, pp 24-29.

[53]

Holleis P, Schmidt A (2008) MakeIt: itegrate user interaction times in the design process of mobile applications. In: Proceedings of PERVASIVE 2008, pp 56-74.

[54]

Ballagas R, Memon F, Reiners R, Borchers J (2007) iStuff mobile: rapidly prototyping new mobile phone interfaces for ubiquitous computing. In: Proceedings of CHI 2007, pp 1107-1116.

[55]

Ballagas R, Ringel M, Stone M, Borchers J (2003) iStuff: a physical user interface toolkit for ubiquitous computing environments. In: Proceedings of CHI 2003, pp 537-544.

[56]

Humble J, Crabtree A, Hemmings T, Akesson K, Koleva B, Rodden T, Hansson P (2003) "Playing with the bits" user-configuration of ubiquitous domestic environments. In: Proceedings of UBICOMP 2003, pp 256-263.

[57]

Truong KN, Huang EM, Abowd GD (2004) CAMP: a magnetic poetry interface for end-user programming of capture applications for the home. In: Proceedings of 6th conference on ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp 2004), pp 143-160.

[58]

Truong KN, Abowd GD (2004) INCA: a software infrastructure to facilitate the construction and evolution of ubiquitous capture and access applications. In: Proceedings of 2nd international conference on pervasive computing (pervasive 2004), pp 140-157.

[59]

Truong KN, Abowd GD, Brotherton JA (2001) Who, what, when, where, how: design issues of capture and access applications. In: Proceedings of Ubicomp 2001, pp 209-224.

[60]

Messer A, Kunjithapatham A, Sheshagiri M, Song H, Kumar P, Nguyen P, Yi KH (2006) InterPlay: a middleware for seamless device integration and task orchestration in a networked home. In: Proceedings of 4th annual ieee international conference on pervasive computing and communications (PerCOM 2006), pp 296-307.

[61]

Beckmann C, Dey AK (2003) SiteView: tangibly programming active environments with predictive visualization. Technical report IRB-TR-03-025, Intel Research, 2003.

[62]

Neely S, Stevenson G, Kray C, Mulder I, Connelly K, Siek KA (2008) Evaluating pervasive and ubiquitous systems. IEEE Pervasive Comput 7(3):85-88.

[63]

O'Neill E, Klepal M, Lewis D, O'Donnell T, O'Sullivan D, Pesch D (2005) A testbed for evaluating human interaction with ubiquitous computing environments. In: Proceedings of 1st international conference on testbeds and research infrastructures for the development of networks and communities, pp 60-69.

[64]

Nishikawa H, Yamamoto S, Tamai M, Nishigaki K, Kitani T, Shibata N, Yasumoto K, Ito M (2006) UbiREAL: realistic smartspace simulator for systematic testing. In: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on ubiquitous computing (Ubi-Comp 2006), pp 459-467.

[65]

Morla R, Davies N (2004) Evaluating a location-based application: a hybrid test and simulation environment. IEEE Pervasive Comput 3(3):48-56.

[66]

Li Y, Landay JA (2008) Into the wild: low-cost ubicomp prototype testing. IEEE Pervasive Comput 41(6):94-97.

[67]

McFadden T, Henricksen K, Indulska J (2004) Automating context-aware application development. In: Proceedings of ubicomp 1st international workshop on advanced context modelling, reasoning and management, pp 90-95.

[68]

Dey AK (2000) Providing architectural support for building context-aware applications. Doctoral thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology.

[69]

Davies N, Gellersen HW (2002) Beyond prototypes: challenges in deploying ubiquitous systems. IEEE Pervasive Comput 1(1):26-35.

[70]

Anastassova M, Mégard C, Burkhardt JM (2007) Prototype evaluation and user needs analysis in the early design of emerging technologies. In: HCI 2007, LNCS, vol 4550, pp 383-392.

[71]

Reilly D, Dearman D, Welsman-Dinelle M, Inkpen KM (2005) Evaluating early prototypes in context: trade-offs, challenges, and successes. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(4):10-18.

Cited By

Macías ANavarro E(2022)Paradigms for the conceptualization of Cyber-Physical-Social-Thinking hyperspaceJournal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments10.3233/AIS-21049214:4(285-316)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.3233/AIS-210492
Al-Ramahi MNoteboom C(2020)Mining User-generated Content of Mobile Patient PortalACM Transactions on Social Computing10.1145/33948313:3(1-24)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3394831
Soute IVacaretu TWit JMarkopoulos P(2017)Design and Evaluation of RaPIDO, A Platform for Rapid Prototyping of Interactive Outdoor GamesACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/310570424:4(1-30)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3105704
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Supporting rapid design and evaluation of pervasive applications: challenges and solutions

Recommendations

Rapid Prototyping for Pervasive Applications

Prototyping, testing, and debugging pervasive applications are challenging tasks, but adequate tool support can greatly simplifythem. The authors tackle this problem at the programming-language level. VisualRDK is a specialized graphical programming ...
System support for pervasive applications

Pervasive computing provides an attractive vision for the future of computing. Computational power will be available everywhere. Mobile and stationary devices will dynamically connect and coordinate to seamlessly help people in accomplishing their ...
Building pervasive applications: research challenges and envisioned solutions
SEPS '08: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM workshop on Software engineering for pervasive services

Pervasive computing systems typically consist of multiple devices and software entities that are capable of interacting with one another. Various types of software-equipped devices may be available for various purposes, such as interacting with the real ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Volume 15, Issue 3

March 2011

91 pages

ISSN:1617-4909

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Copyright © 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited.

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 01 March 2011

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

14
Total Citations
View Citations
599
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 16 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Macías ANavarro E(2022)Paradigms for the conceptualization of Cyber-Physical-Social-Thinking hyperspaceJournal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments10.3233/AIS-21049214:4(285-316)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.3233/AIS-210492
Al-Ramahi MNoteboom C(2020)Mining User-generated Content of Mobile Patient PortalACM Transactions on Social Computing10.1145/33948313:3(1-24)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3394831
Soute IVacaretu TWit JMarkopoulos P(2017)Design and Evaluation of RaPIDO, A Platform for Rapid Prototyping of Interactive Outdoor GamesACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/310570424:4(1-30)Online publication date: 23-Aug-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3105704
(2017)Community ReminderInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.09.001102:C(41-53)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.09.001
Rodrigues FMatalonga STravassos G(2016)CATS DesignProceedings of the 1st Brazilian Symposium on Systematic and Automated Software Testing10.1145/2993288.2993293(1-10)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2993288.2993293
Sánchez Guinea ANain GLe Traon Y(2016)A systematic review on the engineering of software for ubiquitous systemsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2016.05.024118:C(251-276)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2016.05.024
Campillo-Sanchez PGomez-Sanz JWeiss GYolum PBordini RElkind E(2015)A Framework for Developing Multi-Agent Systems in Ambient Intelligence ScenariosProceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems10.5555/2772879.2773519(1949-1950)Online publication date: 4-May-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2772879.2773519
Ruffieux SLalanne DMugellini EKhaled O(2015)Gesture recognition corpora and toolsComputer Vision and Image Understanding10.1016/j.cviu.2014.07.004131:C(72-87)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cviu.2014.07.004
Carroll JHoffman BHan KRosson M(2015)Reviving community networksPersonal and Ubiquitous Computing10.1007/s00779-014-0831-y19:2(477-491)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00779-014-0831-y
Bezerra CAndrade RSantos RAbed Mde Oliveira KMonteiro JSantos IEzzedine HCasiez GPietrzak TChapuis OConversy S(2014)Challenges for usability testing in ubiquitous systemsProceedings of the 26th Conference on l'Interaction Homme-Machine10.1145/2670444.2670468(183-188)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2670444.2670468
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents