Practical Considerations of Context for Context Based Systems: An Example from an Ethnographic Case Study of a Man Diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease (FULL PAPER)
Tony Salvador and Ken Anderson
Intel Corporation
Practical Considerations of Context for Context Based Systems: An Example from an Ethnographic Case Study of a Man Diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease
Tony Salvador, Intel Research
Story of Jim
57 years old, Rochester NY, family therapist before retiring, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer, children of the 60’s (bay boomers interested in assessment)
Average house – 2 bedrooms, 3 living areas, bathroom
Spent 2 days shadowing involving
6 meals together
nap
gym
community college for lecture tickets
hiking
post office – many times
grocery shopping
These may look like tasks…
But by looking at everything as a task we see them as a problem
Reasonable proposition to say that we need to create solutions for these problems
Even daily activities are not necessarily problems
Four Possible Approaches
1. Recognize Contextually bounded and unbounded situations
2. Ask new kinds of questions
Instead of asking “what’s happening?” ask “Why is it happening?”
Instead of asking “what’s the task?” Ask “What are the systems of interaction.”
Instead of asking “how is it done?” “How it’s changing”
3. Design for variability, not normalization
4. Design for people to bring meaning, not for technology to reflect meaning.
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