Every breath you take: use of sensitizing methods in the design of air quality services
Abstract
Mobile phones and wireless sensor networks are used to sense contextual attributes, pertaining not only to the user but also to the environment. Data driven services are used to feed back the information to users. Participatory Design (PD) has been shown to be an appropriate method to facilitate participant understanding of services based on sensor data. The present paper builds on this assumption by setting forth a two-staged PD method, wherein the participants are sensitised to the area of interest prior to commencing the design task. The method was applied on the design of urban air quality services. Sensitization was considered as important due to the abstract nature of air quality variation. The paper describes the study, evaluates the benefits and challenges of the method, while also making conclusions about its applicability to the design of contextual, data driven services, in general.
