Designing for context: Usability in a ubiquitous environment

Abstract

Freeing users from the desktop is now a practical reality in many environments. The implications for mobility are both far-reaching and under-realized in many of the current scenarios we have seen. Our work has focused on the integration of user input into the iterative design process used to develop a contextually aware application for use in an educational environment. We discuss the design and development of Semaphore, a contextually aware tool for use in wireless networked environments, and the unique opportunities an iterative design process presents for our work.