Exposing Values Inherent in Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous computing seems to be a keyword for the next decade covering many aspects of our life in the age of information revolution. However, despite recent technological hype, not much research has been done exposing underlying perceptions of actual users in terms of its use and real-life applications. In this regard, this study makes efforts to expose underlying values assigned by users to ubiquitous computing. As a result, a value-focused framework is developed and presented. Twenty-two potential users of were interviewed and four hundred thirty five statements were collected through these interviews, exposing values assigned by users concerning ubiquitous computing. Subsequent purification and redundancy removal reduces these statements into one-hundred and sixty six objectives that these users have in their mind and these objectives were factored into thirty seven objectives through clustering conducted as a focus group session with three experts. These thirty seven objectives were used in building a means-ends network diagram by analyzing reciprocal relationships among them in a focus group activity of another three experts. Developed framework seems to include five different aspects of ubiquitous computing. The framework may be a good reference in developing missing pieces of ubiquitous-related technologies as well as for developing appropriate business models.