Seeing the Invisible a sociopsychological review of the disappearing computer

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Seeing the Invisiblea sociopsychological review
of the disappearing computer

• jeffrey heer
• peter khooshabeh
• cs294-2 ubiquitous computing
• prof. anind dey, instructor

2
the goal of ubicomp?
the most profound technologies are those that
disappear. they weave them-selves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it.
we believe that people live through their
practices and tacit knowledge so that the most
powerful things are those that are effectively
invisible in use.
a less-traveled path I call the "invisible" its
highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded,
so fitting, so natural, that we use it without
even thinking about it.
only when things disappear in this way are we
freed to use them without thinking and so to
focus beyond them on new goals.
we call our work ubiquitous computing. ... it
is invisible, everywhere computing that does not
live on a personal device of any sort, but is in
the woodwork everywhere.
the computer is really an infrastructure, even
though today we treat it as the end object.
infrastructures should be invisible
a user-centered, human-centered humane technology
where todays personal computer has disappeared
into invisibility
3
the goal of ubicomp?
the most profound technologies are those that
disappear. they weave them-selves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it.
we believe that people live through their
practices and tacit knowledge so that the most
powerful things are those that are effectively
invisible in use.
a less-traveled path I call the "invisible" its
highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded,
so fitting, so natural, that we use it without
even thinking about it.
only when things disappear in this way are we
freed to use them without thinking and so to
focus beyond them on new goals.
we call our work ubiquitous computing. ... it
is invisible, everywhere computing that does not
live on a personal device of any sort, but is in
the woodwork everywhere.
the computer is really an infrastructure, even
though today we treat it as the end object.
infrastructures should be invisible
a user-centered, human-centered humane technology
where todays personal computer has disappeared
into invisibility
4
the goal of ubicomp?
the most profound technologies are those that
disappear. they weave them-selves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it.
we believe that people live through their
practices and tacit knowledge so that the most
powerful things are those that are effectively
invisible in use.
a less-traveled path I call the "invisible" its
highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded,
so fitting, so natural, that we use it without
even thinking about it.
only when things disappear in this way are we
freed to use them without thinking and so to
focus j focus on new goals.
we call our work ubiquitous computing. ... it
is invisible, everywhere computing that does not
live on a personal device of any sort, but is in
the woodwork everywhere.
the computer is really an infrastructure, even
though today we treat it as the end object.
infrastructures should be invisible
a user-centered, human-centered humane technology
where todays personal computer has disappeared
into invisibility
5
the goal of ubicomp?
the most profound technologies are those that
disappear. they weave them-selves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it.
we believe that people live through their
practices and tacit knowledge so that the most
powerful things are those that are effectively
invisible in use.
a less-traveled path I call the "invisible" its
highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded,
so fitting, so natural, that we use it without
even thinking about it.
only when things disappear in this way are we
freed to use them without thinking and so to
focus j focus on new goals.
we call our work ubiquitous computing. ... it
is invisible, everywhere computing that does not
live on a personal device of any sort, but is in
the woodwork everywhere
the computer is really an infrastructure, even
though today we treat it as the end object.
infrastructures should be invisible
a user-centered, human-centered humane technology
where todays personal computer has disappeared
into invisibility
6
the goal of ubicomp?
the most profound technologies are those that
disappear. they weave them-selves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it.
we believe that people live through their
practices and tacit knowledge so that the most
powerful things are those that are effectively
invisible in use.
a less-traveled path I call the "invisible" its
highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded,
so fitting, so natural, that we use it without
even thinking about it.
only when things disappear in this way are we
freed to use them without thinking and so to
focus j focus on new goals.
we call our work ubiquitous computing. ... it
is invisible, everywhere computing that does not
live on a personal device of any sort, but is in
the woodwork everywhere
the computer is really an infrastructure, even
though today we treat it as the end object.
infrastructures should be invisible
a user-centered, human-centered humane technology
where todays personal computer has disappeared
into invisibility
7
the goal of ubicomp?
the most profound technologies are those that
disappear. they weave them-selves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable
from it.
we believe that people live through their
practices and tacit knowledge so that the most
powerful things are those that are effectively
invisible in use.
a less-traveled path I call the "invisible" its
highest ideal is to make a computer so imbedded,
so fitting, so natural, that we use it without
even thinking about it.
only when things disappear in this way are we
freed to use them without thinking and so to
focus j focus on new goals.
we call our work ubiquitous computing. ... it
is invisible, everywhere computing that does not
live on a personal device of any sort, but is in
the woodwork everywhere
the computer is really an infrastructure, even
though today we treat it as the end object.
infrastructures should be invisible
8
roadmap

• why invisibility? what it is and isnt
• peripheral awareness invisibility-in-use
• behind the scenes infrastructural invisibility

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why examine invisibility?

• place ubicomp research endeavors upon a firm
  philosophical foundation
• what does invisibility mean, what does it entail?
• and is it an appropriate organizing principle?
• make feasible a hippocratic oath of computing
• bad technology draws attention to itself, not the
  task
• more fundamentally, flawed design brings to the
  forefront those things that might otherwise be
  invisible

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what invisibility is not

• physically invisible
• achieved through design
• walk up and use
• a goal unto itself

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what invisibility is not

• physically invisible
• understanding how a computer system functions
  internallyextended visibilitycan make it easier
  for a user to tailor the use of the system
  directly to specific actionsincreased
  invisibility.
• Wenger, 1991
• achieved through design
• walk up and use
• a goal unto itself

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what invisibility is not

• physically invisible
• achieved through design
• Such a disappearance is a fundamental consequence
  not of technology, but of human psychology.
  Whenever people learn something sufficiently
  well, they cease to be aware of it.
• Weiser, 1991
• walk up and use
• a goal unto itself

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what invisibility is not

• physically invisible
• achieved through design
• walk up and use
• to fulfill their potential, new technologies
  require new genres.
• Brown Duguid, 1995
• a goal unto itself

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what invisibility is not

• physically invisible
• achieved through design
• walk up and use
• a goal unto itself
• systems always exist in contexts of production
  and use that make them part of the social world.
• Wenger, 1991
• Working infrastructures standardize both people
  and machines.
• Star Bowker, 2002

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what invisibility is

• invisibility-in-use
• infrastructural invisibility

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what invisibility is

• invisibility-in-use
• working through a tool, rather than with it
• Heideggers ready-to-hand vs. present-at-hand
• phenomenological philosophical tradition, Dourish
  2001
• can involve significant perceptual remapping
• Berti 2000 (tool use), Gibson 1938 (driving)
• infrastructural invisibility

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what invisibility is

• invisibility-in-use
• properties of distributed cognitions (Salomon,
  1993)
• flow optimizes experience
• skill effects
• embodiment of tools, seeing through the equipment
• examples
• airline cockpit automation, calculus and
  Cartesian graphs
• infrastructural invisibility

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what invisibility is

• invisibility-in-use
• infrastructural invisibility
• services performed on the users behalf
• electricity, network packet routing, cell service
• infrastructure is mediated by visible artifacts
• light switch/power plug, web browser, cell phone

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what invisibility is

• invisibility-in-use
• infrastructural invisibility
• properties of infrastructure (Star Bowker,
  2002)
• embeddedness, modularity, scope
• learned through membership, links with
  conventions of practice
• embodiment of standards
• built upon installed base
• becomes visible upon breakdown
• examples
• the power grid, plumbing, the internet

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implications for design

• leveraging expertise
• ethnography as tool to unearth the invisible
• situated learning
• learn like experts, rather than think like
  experts (Klein, 1998)
• build on existing, successful infrastructure
• understanding the standardization process
• exposing infrastructure
• appropriation accountability (Dourish 1998)
  facilitate learning seamful design (Chalmers
  2003)

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seeing the invisible

• Perhaps if we stopped thinking of computers as
  information highways and began to think of them
  more modestly as symbolic sewers, this realm
  would open up a bit.
• Star, 1999