Ubiquitous Computing

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology has become increasingly important for ubiquitous computing. Florian Resatsch investigates the optimal strategies for developing and evaluating ubiquitous computing applications based on NFC. He draws on a variety of current theories on ubiquitous computing, human-computer interaction, and technology acceptance to propose an iterative process model (UCAN) for the integrated development and evaluation of NFC applications. Finally, the author offers a range of design guidelines for NFC applications in four categories: NFC technology, tag infrastructure, devices, and human factors.

Auteur
Dr. Florian Resatsch completed his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar at the Chair of Information Systems at the Technische Universität München (TUM). He is the managing partner and co-founder of a company focused on object and location-based information services.

Résumé
Ubiquitous Computing has been the subject of discussion in various research areas for some time now. Over the past several years RFID and Near Field Communication (NFC) technologies have become the driving force behind the vision of Ubiquitous Computing. In particular, NFC could become a real Ubiquitous Computing technology in consumer hands if it succeeds in capturing distribution channels, for example due to integration into the mobile devices market. Even if that will be the case in the future, application developers and entrepreneurs interested in using RFID or NFC technologies will be faced with the challenges of negotiating the process of moving early prototypes into a final product. In particular, given the physical nature of the technology, it is imperative that the user be involved in the very early stages of development in order to bring successful, consumer-accepted applications to market. In 2009, NFC technology still finds itself in the starting blocksaccordingly, these research results come at the right time. Previous approaches to the challenge of developing NFC applications have neither applied research methods specific to Ubiquitous Computing, nor have they integrated the appropriate design guidelines. Florian Resatsch's work focuses specifically on these issues and makes use of a unified developmental and evaluation process model. The work draws on knowledge from a range of disciplines and combines these into a process for developing and evaluating Ubiquitous Computing applications using Near Field Communication (NFC) as an enabling technology.

Contenu
Theoretical Framework.- Human Computer Interaction and Technology Acceptance.- Designing an Ubiquitous Computing Application Development and Evaluation Process Model (UCAN).- From Initial Idea to Low-Fidelity Prototype: Easymeeting and the Mobile Prosumer.- Working Prototype: An NFC-based Mobile Phone Ticketing System.- Conclusion, Limitations, and Future Research.