What to expect from studies about ubiquitous computing applications is a topic I dealt with the other day in my presentation. Reading "Control, Deception, and Communication: Evaluating the Deployment of a Location-Enhanced Messaging Service" by Iachello et al., 2005, I found this very interesting quote:

"the results of our study required us to step back and reconsider our assumptions, which were based on our own common sense considerations and a straightforward interpretation of Weiser’s idea of calm technology"

Why do I blog this? although the studies we're carrying out in HCI lab are often about "evaluating" prototypes, I find important to have another goal on the agenda: reconsidering assumptions, criticizing normative vision of the future, and also investigating the social/cognitive/spatial effects of technologies that pervade the environment.