Crossbreeding Wearable and Ubiquitous Computing: Design Experiences from the BubbleBadge

This paper describes the design of the BubbleBadge, a public wearable device that contains characteristics associated with ubiquitous computing and wearable computers. We show how designing devices that are a mixture of the two, in some ways diametrically different approaches, is productive and creative as it challenges conventional conceptions and categorizations. Questions of intended usage and perceived user of the BubbleBadge are articulated and addressed, identifying ways to design new devices in the intersection between wearable computers and ubiquitous computing.