Vlad Coroama 

Scenario-driven Prototyping for Ubiquitous Computing - A Novel Method for the 
Assessment of Technological Challenges and Societal Implications. 

PhD thesis No. 17850, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 2008 

Abstract: 

With the recent rapid advances in sensing technologies, storage capacity, 
wireless communication, and processing power, the decade-old vision of smart 
environments and smart everyday items is becoming increasingly feasible. Given 
its vast potential, the vision is slowly moving - under different names such 
as "ubiquitous computing," "smart environment," "ambient intelligence," or 
"internet of things" - from small, isolated research prototypes into large 
national and international research collaborations, public policy hearings, 
and the consciousness of the public at large. However, while the technologies 
comprising ubiquitous computing continue to advance steadily, a gap is 
widening between the visions depicting their possible usages, and the reality 
of existing projects and prototypes. In contrast to the prototypes that 
usually focus on individual technological aspects, ubiquitous computing 
visions assume a holistic paradigm, with smart environments governing most 
aspects of our everyday lives on a 24/7 basis, leading not only to complex 
technological challenges, but also to broad, far-reaching, and difficult to 
anticipate societal consequences. It is thus hardly surprising that, as 
reports about ubiquitous computing research have entered into the public 
consciousness, concerns over the potential risks have increased. 

Traditional methods of technology assessment, and in particular scenario 
analysis, however, are often overwhelmed by the technological broadness and 
the high dynamism of the field, resulting in technologically naive scenarios 
that overestimate future technical developments or underestimate the interplay 
between different technologies. Consequently, few relevant societal issues are 
raised, and hardly any novel technological insights and solutions can be drawn 
from such exercises. Developers of ubiquitous computing technologies, on the 
other hand, have traditionally focused mostly on purely technological 
challenges in their research projects and prototypes, e.g., smart office 
environments, novel location technologies, or efficient service discovery 
protocols. The narrow scope of such prototypes typically ignores questions of 
societal compatibility and economic feasibility, thus offering no help in 
understanding the broad societal opportunities and risks of the novel 
technologies either. Furthermore, since the projects often ignore societal and 
economic constraints, many of the technological answers they provide could 
prove to be irrelevant, for such applications might never exist in the future. 
If ubiquitous computing prototypes were to focus more on recognizing relevant 
areas - i.e., applications with a solid business model, strong societal 
acceptance, and few societal risks - they would not only provide the needed 
help in understanding the societal challenges, but would also approach more 
relevant technological issues. 

The aim of this thesis is to define a novel method for identifying the 
relevant challenges posed by ubiquitous computing technologies - both 
technical and societal challenges. The method, "scenario-driven prototyping," 
proposes in a four-step process the tight coupling of multidisciplinary 
scenario analysis with technological prototype development. The hypothesis is 
that closer coordination of scenario forecasting and prototype development can 
be combined in an integrated, coordinated process, thus helping to narrow the 
above-mentioned gap between technological feasibility and societal concern. 
This tighter integration will allow for relevant prototypes that advance 
technological progress through more realistic challenges. At the same time, 
the better grounding of scenarios in technological realities will help 
alleviate needless fears from misrepresented technical abilities, and focus 
instead on the probable opportunities and risks posed by ubiquitous computing. 

To this respect, the contributions of the thesis are threefold: First, the 
scenario-driven prototyping method itself. Second, the technological and 
societal insights gained from an assistive technology project devoted to the 
blind and visually impaired, which was developed according to the proposed 
method. Finally, the insights from a project for the individual and 
behavior-dependent accounting of traffic costs, also developed according to 
that method. Through the multitude of interdependent technological, societal, 
and economic insights generated, many of which would presumably not have been 
possible with formerly existing methods, both projects support our claim that 
scenario-driven prototyping is a valuable tool to address relevant 
technological and societal implications of ubiquitous computing.