Unfolding understandings

Abstract

A key challenge in co-designing UbiComp is that users may have limited understanding or experience of these technologies. While the value of situated co-design activities for promoting understanding is known, the role of time is less well researched. Here we describe and reflect on a range of co-design activities carried out with the curators of an historic English manor house to create novel visitor tours. We show how an ensemble of situated co-design activities over time led to the unfolding of user understanding around issues of content, technology and user experience, in turn leading to a progressive re-imagining of practice. This points to the importance of time and variety of in-situ activities to help people engage as co-designers in creating novel UbiComp-enabled experiences.