Scenario Evaluations for Ubiquitous Computing - Stories Come True?

This position paper presents experiences based on some scenario evaluations of ubiquitous applications with potential users. The purpose of these evaluations was to study how credible and useful potential users considered the scenarios. Another purpose was to identify the needs of different user groups for ubicomp applications and let the participants innovate new uses for the applications. Scenario evaluation is a usable tool for studying new concepts in the context of everyday life. Scenarios enable designers to develop functional models of real-life use of new products and to present design ideas to the users, which could be difficult or expensive to prototype or simulate otherwise