Thinking About Context: Design Practices for Information Architecture with Context-Aware Systems

The ubiquity of low-cost, sensor-rich, mobile computing devices has meant that designing context-aware systems is now a common concern in Information Architecture. Because of how prevalent context-aware systems have become, the way in which practitioners design context-aware systems is of great importance. While design frameworks and models have been proposed for context-aware computing systems, there has not yet been research that focuses on how designers’ views of context influence Information Architecture practices. To address this, we present an empirical analysis of 11 in-depth interviews with designers of a variety of context-aware systems. Our analysis of these interviews, along with a review of the artifacts produced during the design of these systems, uses the theoretical lens of professional vision to illuminate how designers view, use, and account for context in the design process. Our analysis of the artifacts and interviews reveals that designers’ perspectives on context adapted as they addressed the most salient and timely constraints. This results in the designer shifting between representational and interactional views of context rather than having one fixed perspective. This finding suggests that the methods of information architects for context-aware systems need to accommodate shifting perspective on context. We present details of this activity to contribute insight into the practice of information architecture for context-aware systems.