IV.3.1Purpose
The purpose of the wearable community development process (WCDP) is to guide the activities the lead to the implementation of a wearable community application and its deployment on user devices. The description of the development process is divided into roles and development phases.
IV.3.2Roles
The development process defines three roles: designer, developer and user.
• Designers define the overall purpose of a wearable community. They are concerned with the social interactions that are to take place among members of a wearable community.
• Developers create the software that runs on the users’ wearable computers. Their main concern is the implementation of specific wearable community applications.
• Users are the persons who use wearable computers to engage fellow community members.
At least two different models of community development are possible. In the first model, designers, developers and users are distinct individuals. Designers and developers together develop a wearable community application that is then distributed to users. This model is similar to the traditional software development model. In an alternative model, users are at the same time designers and developers. A group of
model is possible because a community language defines a standard that promotes interoperability.
IV.3.3Development Phases
The design process guides design and development activities ranging from the initial design to deployment of application software on a user’s device. The process is an iterative, cyclic process divided into seven phases: assessment, conceptual design,
specification, implementation, seeding, dissemination and review (Figure 7). Each phase
defines activities performed by users, designers or developers; the outcome of some phase is a specific set of design artifacts. The relationship between roles, phases and artifacts is depicted in Figure 14.
The seven process phases are defined as follows:
Phase 1.Assessment
The assessment phase is performed by designers and developers in cooperation with users. The goal of this phase is to explore the purpose of a wearable community and the user requirements.
The activities of the assessment phase include:
• Identify the user population
• Identify the user needs
• Define the overall purpose of a wearable community
• Identify high-level requirements of the wearable community application The outcome is an understanding of the goal, purpose and scope of a wearable community and wearable community application.
Phase 2.Conceptual Design
The design phase is performed by designers, possibly in cooperation with users. The goal of this phase is to capture the user experience of interacting within a community. The design activities are:
• Define scenarios that describe all possible interactions within a community
• Identify which personal information people are willing to disclose about themselves.
The artifacts produced by the conceptual design phase are:
• A scenario description (Chapter IV.2.2)
Phase 3.Specification
The specification phase is performed by designers and developers. The goal of this phase is to specify the interactions that can take place during an encounter. The activities of this phase are:
• Specify the conversation that can occur between actors (users and agents) The artifacts produced by the specification phase are:
• A community vocabulary (Chapter IV.2.4)
• A community protocol diagram (Chapter IV.2.5)
Phase 4.Implementation
The implementation phase is performed by developers. The goal is to create a software implementation of the community agent, the messages and the user profile. The particular activities include:
• Implement the community agent
• Implement data structures representing the messages
• Implement data structure representing a user profile Artifacts are:
• Agent implementation (source code and executable code)
• Profile implementation
• Vocabulary implementation (i.e. implementation of message types) The community protocol is implemented by the community agent.
Phase 5.Seeding
The seeding phase is performed by users or developers. Seeding is the act of distributing the agent to a small number of initial users. This can be done in a public way by creating a community web site that enables users to download the agent or in a more personal way by approaching prospective community members. Seeding
enables individuals to gradually start a new community by involving just a few people. Seeding involves only one essential activity:
• Install the application on a user’s device
Phase 6.Dissemination
The dissemination phase is performed by the user. Dissemination is the rumor-like spreading of copies of an agent throughout a user population during face-to-face encounters. An individual who is already member of a particular community transfers a copy of an agent to an individual who is not yet a member, but wishes to become one. Therefore, all members will eventually share the same agent implementation which originates/stems from the original seeders. This phase is essential for a grass-root like growing of an initially small community and represents an important and novel aspect of wearable communities. We envision an ecosystem of wearable community agents, each one created by a different developer, all together competing for the user’s attention. Only those agents that are beneficial to users (because it connects them to a useful or fun community) will be propagated to friends, family and colleagues. Agents that are not circulated will eventually die out and disappear. The individual activities of the dissemination phase are:
• Negotiate about access to the agent
• Transfer the agent from one device to another
• Install the agent on the user’s device
• Remove an agent from the user’s device
Phase 7.Review
The review phase is performed by designers in cooperation with users. The goal is to evaluate:
• the success or failure of the wearable community created by the application prototype
As discussed in Chapter II, social and technical concerns of wearable communities are difficult to separate. A wearable community application creates a technical foundation from which a community might or not emerge. The success of an application depends on the success of the community it creates. Thus, designers need to simultaneously evaluate technology and social behavior. This can only be done through empirical studies of real users using the technology in a real context.
If the results of the review phase are not satisfactory, a new development cycle needs to be started beginning with either the assessment or the conceptual design phase.
The review phase is one of the least understood phases