Achieving Non-intrusive Notifications in a Ubiquitous Service Environment

The use of computing artefacts for collaboration is problematic since the artefacts often are designed mainly for individual purposes. We identify some sources of intrusion on the collaborative task imposed by the trends towards more and more computer dense environments and we put forward some general design principles to diminish them. Based on these principles we have designed a non-intrusive system for the delivery of notifications. A prototype of the system is presented where we explore different design aspects of the output terminals, such as personal vs. public and in focus vs. peripheral.