Scenario-Driven Prototyping for Ubiquitous Computing A Novel Method for the Assessment of Technological Challenges and Societal Implications

With the recent rapid advances in sensing technologies, storage capacity, wireless communication, and processing power, the decade-old vision of smart environments and smart everyday items is becoming increasingly feasible. Given its vast potential, the vision is slowly moving – under different names such as “ubiquitous computing,” “smart environment,” “ambient intelligence,” or “internet of things” – from small, isolated research prototypes into large national and international research collaborations, public policy hearings, and the consciousness of the public at large. However, while the technologies comprising ubiquitous computing continue to advance steadily, a gap is widening between the visions depicting their possible usages, and the reality of existing projects and prototypes. In contrast to the prototypes that usually focus on individual technological aspects, ubiquitous computing visions assume a holistic paradigm, with smart environments governing most aspects of our everyday lives on a 24/7 basis, leading not only to complex technological challenges, but also to broad, far-reaching, and difficult to anticipate societal consequences. It is thus hardly surprising that, as reports about ubiquitous computing research have entered into the public consciousness, concerns over the potential risks have increased. Traditional methods of technology assessment, and in particular scenario analysis, however, are often overwhelmed by the technological broadness and the high dynamism of the field, resulting in technologically naive scenarios that overestimate future technical developments or underestimate the interplay between different technologies. Consequently, few relevant societal issues are raised, and hardly any novel technological insights and solutions can be drawn from such exercises. Developers of ubiquitous computing technologies, on the other hand, have traditionally focused mostly on purely technological challenges in their research projects and prototypes, e.g., smart office environments, novel location technologies, or efficient service discovery protocols. The narrow scope of such prototypes typically ignores questions of societal