Articulating the Task at Hand and Making Information Relevant to It

Building truly "context-aware" environments presents a greater challenge than using data transmitted by ubiquitous computing devices: It requires shared understanding between humans and their computational environments. This essay articulates some specific problems that can be addressed by representing context. It explores the unique possibilities of design environments that model and represent domains, tasks, design guidelines, solutions, and their rationale, and the larger context of such environments embedded in the physical world. Context in design is not a fixed entity sensed by devices, but it is emerging and it is unbounded. Context-aware environments must address these challenges to be more supportive to all stakeholders who design and evolve complex design artifacts.

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