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Designing ubiquitous information systems for a community of homeless young people: precaution and a way forward

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Abstract

Drawing upon and distinguishing themselves from domestic, public, work, and natural settings, homeless communities offer new cultural frontiers into which ubiquitous computing could diffuse. We report on one such frontier, a community of homeless young people, located in Seattle, WA, seeking both to foresee the consequences of pervasive access to digital media and communications and to prepare for its seemingly inevitable uptake. The community consists of hundreds of young people living without stable housing, often in the public, and an alliance of nine service agencies that seek to stabilize youth and equip them to escape homelessness. We examine the opportunities for ubiquitous computing in this community by, in part, developing a precautionary stance on intervention. This stance is then used to critically examine a scenario in which information about the service agencies is made public. From this scenario, and a description of the social and material constraints of this community, we argue that “precaution” offers productive counsel on decisions on whether and how to intervene with ubiquitous computing. A precautionary point of view is especially important as ubiquitous computing diffuses into communities that, by their social and material conditions, are vulnerable. In such communities, the active avoidance of harms and plans for their mitigation is particularly important.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Washington State Community Technology Opportunity Program for funding the purchase of hardware for the community technology center. We thank Mike Crandall for alerting us to this state funding; our collaborators at Street Youth Ministries, especially all of the young people with whom we have learned so much; Batya Friedman, Alan Borning, Lisa Nathan, and members of the Value Sensitive Design Research Laboratory for creating a stimulating intellectual environment; and the Globi-Comp 2009 workshop participants and the reviewers for their insightful feedback on this work.

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  1. The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195-2840, USA

    Jill Palzkill Woelfer & David G. Hendry

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  1. Jill Palzkill Woelfer
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  2. David G. Hendry
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Correspondence to Jill Palzkill Woelfer.

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Woelfer, J.P., Hendry, D.G. Designing ubiquitous information systems for a community of homeless young people: precaution and a way forward. Pers Ubiquit Comput 15, 565–573 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-010-0341-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-010-0341-5

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