Ambiguity as a Resource for Design
Ambiguity as a Resource for Design
Gaver, B., Beaver, J. and Benford, S. Ambiguity as a resource for design (links to alternate locarion). in Bellotti, V., Erickson, T., et al. eds. Proceedings of CHI 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, ACM Press, New York, NY, 2003.
In HCI ambiguity is often perceived as the nemesis of usefulness and usability. Instead of regarding ambiguity as a problem, the authors suggest that it can be sees as an opportunity in the context of emerging application for everyday life (alternatives to task-oriented forms of ubiquitous computing). Indeed, ambiguity can make a virtue out of technical limitations by providing the grounds for peoples interpretations to supplement them.
Ambiguity is an attribute of the interpretation of fuzziness or inconsistency. Things themselves are not inherently ambiguous. However, they may give rise to multiple interpretations depending on their precision, consistency and accuracy on the one hand, and the identity, motivations, and expectations of an interpreter on the other.
The authors distinguish three principal kinds of ambiguity: ambiguity of information, of context and of relationship. Ambiguity of information is of prior interest with my focus on spatial uncertainty. Gaver et al. provide an example of Bystander, a mixed reality game in which mobile player’s location is tracked using GPS data, which is prone to errors
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