Designing Ambient Media: A Philosophical Viewpoint of Universal Design

The philosophy of information is the area of research that studies conceptual issues arising at the intersection of computer science, information technology and philosophy. Universal design is a concept that emphasizes the importance of non-specialized features in things and environments. As ambient media is becoming more intelligent and the users are already across a larger part of the population, the path towards achieving universal design and change of attitude in the authors’ minds is clear but requires that they think globally and frame the issues a little differently. This article aims to see universal design concept; its principles, uses, design processes, from a philosophical perspective in terms of ambient media design. Principles for designing intelligent user interface are derived from the universal design principles and a framework is proposed. The framework is then verified to see how optimally these intelligent user interface design principles can work to enhance ambient media experience. The paper concludes by arguing that the concept of universal design for ambient media development is not a style but an attitude of accepting the difference and responsibility of ours by proposing what needs to be done further for upholding the universal design concept of ambient media design.