A design space for end user development in the time of the internet of things

Abstract

This paper discusses the issues raised by the Internet of Things for end user development of interactive applications, and how they can be addressed. In such technological setting, applications have to adapt to various types of contextual events, which can be related to users, devices, environments, and social relationships. This calls for environments supporting the development of applications able to cope with dynamic sets of people, objects, devices, and services. The article discusses the characterizing concepts of such environments and their underlying motivations by analysing various solutions proposed to support them and their main design issues. We describe the relevant concepts and discuss how to make them understandable by people without programming experience. One result of this work is a design space, which identifies the main features that should be addressed to support Internet of Things applications using EUD approaches. Such a design space can be used as the basis for comparative discussion amongst various approaches. The analysis provided can also inform the design and development of new tools, and stimulate discussion on current research challenges.