User-centred design and evaluation of ubiquitous services

摘要

Welcome to Coventry and SIGDOC 2005. This year''s conferencemarks a major step for the SIG, the first time its annualconference has been staged outside North America. In addition tothe traditional mainstays of the conference, the USA, Canada andthe UK, the authors whose papers are included in these proceedingshail also from the Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Israel, theNetherlands and Brazil. The conference also marks a furtherbroadening of the range of disciplines contributing to an eventwhich has always been notable for its cross-disciplinary nature.Originally, when the SIG was founded by John Rigo in 1976, the''DOC'' in SIGDOC stood for ''documentation''. As a result theconference was supported mainly be technical writers and softwareengineers, a mix which resulted in many lively debates betweenthese two groups of people, resulting in the chance for bothcommunities to place their work in a wider context than is affordedby single discipline forums.>However, the nature of both computer software and itsdocumentation has changed radically since the inception of the SIG.Software documentation is nowadays often implemented usinghypermedia technologies and may include embedded video, animationand sound. It is as likely to be delivered in real time over theweb as it is to be published, packaged and delivered physicallywith the product which it documents. As a result of these changesin 2003 the ''DOC'' was recast as ''Design Of Communication'' -- atitle which clearly voices what the conference is now all about:principles, methods and technologies for the design ofcommunication between humans using computer technology as a medium.It is from this more recent mandate for the conference that thetheme for this year''s event arises -- ''Documenting and Designingfor Pervasive Information''. We find ourselves in the middle of amajor paradigm shift in computing - the advent of ubiquitous orpervasive computing, in which computerized devices pervade ourtechnological environment. This results in a vast increase inpotential means for the production, storage and delivery ofinformation. In the pervasive computing world information productsare as likely to be produced by global collaborations as they areby single authors. Rather than residing in single repositories,they may be distributed over many computing devices collaboratingin ad-hoc arrangements. Instead of being delivered on astandardized desktop machine, they may be delivered on PDA''s,cellphones, wearable devices and other, yet to be developedinterfaces. For ''designers of communication'' this new paradigmoffers new questions concerning how we design our communicationsproducts, the methods we use, the concerns of usability andavailability, the potential and pitfalls of pervasive informationtechnologies. SIGDOC authors have responded with the papers thatyou will find in this document. Broadly, they are grouped underfive headings: ullib· InformationDesign Principles and Methods/b The ever changing nature of''documents'', particularly inthe pervasive computing environment,requires continual development of the methodology of design ofthese information products. Five papers present a range of work onthis topic, from both information designers and computerscientists./li lib·Usability/b perennial topic for SIGDOC, which hastraditionally taken advantage of its multidisciplinary nature totake a wider view on the topic than pure ''HCI''. This year''s fourpapers are no exception./li lib·Document Authoring, Production and Management/b Thetraditional topic for the conference, now seen in the context ofhypermedia and web-centric documentation by the four papersincluded here./li lib· Graphical andVisual Information/b Reflecting the broadening base ofSIGDOC into graphical and visual design, five papers explore thepotential of non-verbal communication media and design methods forthem./li lib· PervasiveDocumentation Systems/b This year''s theme has inspired theproduction of these six papers, which explore the design concernsof pervasive information from a range of viewpoints, includingcultural, organizational and technical./li/ul.