Using participatory design methods with ubiquitous computing technologies

This paper outlines one of the projects from my PhD research which proposes the use of tangible design methods in participatory and creative scenarios to enable the conceptualization of uses for “the internet of things” - that is to say the contemporary interest in connecting everyday objects together in networks, for the home, in social settings or over the internet. This is related to the increasing use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags to label items and the possibilities for peer-to-peer tag communication between devices that is enabled in the Near Field Communication (NFC) standard. It represents one part of a larger research that also includes projects about digitally embodied objects as tools, and commonsbased networks as peer learning environments.