PUCAD 2011 - 1st Workshop on Patterns for UbiComp Application Design

The workshop invites authors to contribute to the field of application design for ubiquitous computing (UbiComp) environments.

Working designs and design surprises - positive as well as negative results - are asked to be contributed and discussed.

We aim for collecting best practices for designs as well as surprisingly unsuccessful approaches as design (anti-)patterns for UbiComp application design.

In addition to interaction techniques and application examples we seek for methods to find, extract, formulate and structure design knowledge for this domain. Processes to abstract and transfer findings will also be discussed in the scope of this workshop.

The vision of ubiquitous computing by Mark Weiser has motivated and influenced the development and implementation of smart embedded devices. In the recent decades, their physical size has been significantly reduced accompanied by novel interaction concepts for smart environments.

Currently, different industrial and research approaches enter different distribution channels creating a huge diversity of concepts concerning application design, service provisioning, and interaction techniques. The knowledge and experience from these approaches, however, is currently inherent to the individual systems, concepts, or focusing on specific problems. Thus, general design guidelines derived from proven concepts are hard to reveal, capture, and transfer to other application designs.

As a consequence, proven concepts are currently hard to compare or combine. If the latter was possible, recommendations and ratings for often used combinations of good design practices could be realized.

Well working concepts and designs are usually elaborately documented. Bad practices or failing concepts can also be valuable to avoid design mistakes a priori. However, as these are rarely published certain design flaws are often repeated. This kind of design knowledge also needs to be preserved and made available together with working design guidelines. So, the central question of the workshop is as follows:

“How can we abstract, combine, and keep alive UbiComp application design knowledge?”

GOALS
The main goal of the workshop is to collect knowledge about evaluated approaches in UbiComp application design and interaction techniques. We seek for new ideas, prototypes, design patterns, pattern retrieval processes, and insights as a basis to develop a deeper understanding of the field and to structure design knowledge. We will provide an open forum to share information, results, and ideas on current research in this area.

In the spirit of the INTERACT 2011 theme, the workshop encourages to build bridges between the different communities forming the interdisciplinary area of ubiquitous computing.

By creating a comprehensive body of knowledge of existing research we aim to evolve discussions about future topics in UbiComp, interaction design, but also pattern retrieval and pattern organization. We will bring together researchers and practitioners who are concerned with design, development, and implementation of new applications and services in the field of ubiquitous computing.

TOPICS
Topics of the workshop cover interaction techniques, application design and user studies, application design patterns, pattern retrieval and management in the area of ubicomp application design.

Possible research themes include (but are not limited to):

? Novel User Interfaces and Interaction Techniques

? Novel Interaction Concepts and Metaphors

? Evaluations on Concepts and Prototypes

? User Studies and Surveys for Application Design

? Identified Application Design Patterns

? Successful Designs

? Best Practices and Design Patterns

? Pattern Collections

? Approaches that failed surprisingly

? Revealed Anti-Patterns

? Identification and Preservation of Design Patterns

? Processes for Managing Design Patterns

? Rules for Pattern Assembly

? Processes for Contributing to Existing Pattern Languages

http://pucad.fit.fraunhofer.de