Interview with Adam Greenfield on the user experience of ubiquitous computing

The Putting People First blog quotes Adam Greenfield from an interview on ubiquitous computing:

If ubiquitous systems, products, and services are developed in the absence of careful, sensitive interaction design they fail. And they fail in a way that poses particular challenges and risks to the user’s sense of calm and equanimity, because by and large the interaction landscape of everyday life is very robust, very well-assimilated
[…]
Someone with a commitment to the human being at the focus of these technologies, who’s been trained to weigh that person’s prerogatives heavily in the design of transactions, who has the experience to recognize and account for not merely this single system but the entire context in which it’s operating - that’s the person you want to include on your team if you expect your intervention to succeed.

Creating embedded (“ubiquitous”) digital interactions into everyday environments, even if they may not have a “UI” in the traditional sense, needs just as much design – in the sense of a human-centred approach – as any other field of design.

The full interview can be read at We Make Money Not Art and on the http://liftlab.com/think/nova/2007/01/23/adam-greenfield-interview/ Liftlab blog