Pervasive Design, fourth edition

Services and products are increasingly composed of computerized things that are interconnected, with embedded sensors, and interaction capabilities. This trend is evident also in everyday objects and tools and is rapidly changing the way we live our lives. Design work and designers have to keep up with this development and adapt both thinking and tools. The problem is no longer just to design a physical object or interact with a single computational device and design is not even limited to the service embedding the device. It needs to include all of the above while, importantly, also taking the particular context of use into account. This book presents a framework and a number of and tools from a systems perspective that will help the designer take the step from designing a thing or a web site to designing a context aware pervasive service. As a first basis for this, three complementary interactors; Human, Information and Thing, along with the interactions they enable are introduced. They are used to infuse a way of thinking on pervasive services that is reapplied also to groups and joint ventures. Services are thoroughly introduced in the book along with their support, ranging from networked infrastructure for communication to cognitive by artificial intelligence. The design process is introduced by a discussion on the goals for design. Usability, value based design and meaningful user experiences are surveyed as guides for better designs. Beginning with the resultant understanding, the design process is staged using the levels of service design, requirement analysis, concept, information, interaction, and appearance design. Relevant tools and an outline of the possible design space of mobile and pervasive applications are given for each level, and the design work is framed by an overall story-based approach. In total the book consists of 658 pages, 112 figures and 218 illustrations. Both text and ideas have improved from the third edition. One year weiser. Håkan Gulliksson is a lecturer on Interaction technology and Mobile design at Umeå University Sweden. He has been the coordinator for the Master of Science program in Interaction and Design for more than ten years.