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Activity Based Design
Bent Bruun Kristensen PhD Course, March 27-29, 2006 |
Course ContentsSince the 80'ies it has been a commonplace in Scandinavia to take the point of departure in the users' activities when designing computer systems. The motivation is that computer-based artifacts must fit the work and the organisation where they are used.With the advent of pervasive computing, the relation between activities and computer-based artifacts takes on a new shape. Now the `user-interface' has expanded to cover the whole geographical area where activities take place. The users can either carry their tools with them on mobile devices or they can access the software from different devices at different locations as convenient. Since computer support can be accessed from many places in the application domain, this means that activities and artifacts tend to become more integrated. In some cases, it also means that the system must keep track of the users' ongoing activities, in order to offer the relevant information in the right time at the right place to the right participant. A possible way of doing this is to represent the activity in the system. In the case of cooperative activities, the relations between the participants and between the participants and the activity could be represented: for example, people must be allowed to enter and leave, to suspend and resume activities when convenient, and to invite other participants to join. The systems have to change their focus from things to activities and associations. In addition, the physical space and time becomes important. Information systems also look different in this light. They become activity systems where events are executed, recorded and analysed. This requires changes to standard specification notations, such as UML. The course will answer questions like:
ProgrammeThe course runs in three phases:
About the Lecturers
Facts
RegistrationRegistration for the course should be sent to phdschool-secretary@brics.dk before March 1, 2006. |