Doors7: A New Performance Paradigm for Pervasive Computing

Talking on "Space of Flows: Characteristics and Strategies", Felix Stalder, director of Openflows, a project in participatory media and open source intelligence based in Toronto, analysed the changes needed in assessing the impact of design as digital technology becomes ubiquitous. Although he did not address usability in any specific way, his reappraisal of how functionality can be evaluated has obvious relevance to an industry where assessing and improving performance is the key goal.

He was talking at the Doors 7 conference "Flow: the design challenge of pervasive computing" (see UN story: Pervasive Computing gets Perceptive Treatment).

He called the change taking place as devices become networked both quantitative and qualitative. He said that as flows change their volume and direction, nodes (appliances, people) change their characteristics. If we put this into the context of network or system design, we see that when he says 'the characteristics of each element are less dependent on their internal quality than on their relationship to others', he is moving us from a consideration of standalone design (a space of places) to connected artifacts (a space of flows).

'In other words, function, value and meaning in the space of flows are relational and not absolute. Acquiring the latest expert system does not guarantee that one has sophisticated advice at one's disposal. More often than not, making such a system work in the unique configuration of information flows that characterise each company is a daunting task.'

He went on to say that whether a node works or not is not determined within the node, but emerges from the network of which the node is a part. 'As the network changes, as old connections die and new ones are established, as the flows are reorganised through other nodes, meaning, functionality, values change too.'

'How do we deal with that? ...We have to shift our attention away from the "within" on to the "in-between". Rather than asking what is made out of, we have to ask, what does it interface to?'

He told the audience that from the point of view of purposeful design this created a problem. The life of these networks is an emergent property. 'What we can do, though, is design some of its elements, particularly the objects. These elements, however, are complemented by elements outside of our immediate control.' The emergent effects, that which gives meaning and value to the individual elements that we design, are even harder to steer, he said.

This does not lessen the importance of design, but it changes its characteristics. As meaning and functionality move from the object of design into relationships created by flows, the object in itself becomes incomplete. One cannot know what the full shape of an object is before one tries it out by inserting it into a specific intersection of flows. In other words, testing in situ will be an absolute prerequisite of purposeful design. But this may not be the best solution.

Nodes (appliances) need to be generic so that they become specific under conditions that we cannot fully predict, he suggested. This is not because we do not know enough. 'It is because unintended consequences will sooner or later come back and surprise us by reconfiguring the conditions for the node that we have just so consciously designed. That's the moment we need to be ready for.'

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