Everyware_ The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing - Adam Greenfield [99]
If you think this scenario sounds unduly optimistic, recent technological history offers some support for it. Starting in 1998, a grassroots movement of independent developers demanding so-called "Web standards" forced the hand of industry giants like Microsoft and Netscape, and in not such a terribly long period of time, either.
Within a few years, any major browser you cared to download was compliant with the set of standards the activists had pushed for. The combination of structural and presentational techniques the so-called "standardistas" insisted on is now considered a benchmark of responsible Web development. By any measure, this is a very successful example of bottom-up pressure resulting in wholesale improvements to the shared technological environment.
The standardistas, it must be said, were on the right side of an emerging business calculus to begin with: by the time the movement came to prominence, it was already punitively expensive for developers to code six or seven different versions of a site simply to render properly in all the incompatible browsers then popular. They also enjoyed the advantage of urging their changes on a relatively concentrated decision nexus, at least where the browser-makers were concerned.
And before we get too enthusiastic about this precedent, and what it may or may not imply for us, we should remind ourselves that ensuring that a given ubiquitous system respects our prerogatives will be many orders of magnitude more difficult than ascertaining a Web site's compliance with the relevant standards. The latter, after all, can be verified by running a site's source code through an automated validator. By contrast, we've seen how much room for interpretation there is in defining "undue complications," let alone in determining what might constitute "harm" or "embarrassment." The grey areas are legion compared to the simple, binary truths of Web standards: Either a site is coded in well-formed XHTML, or it is not.
Nevertheless, at its core, the story of Web standards is both inspiring and relevant to our concerns: the coordinated action of independent professionals and highly motivated, self-educated amateurs did change the course of an industry not particularly known for its flexibility. As a direct result, the browsers that the overwhelming majority of us use today are more powerful, the experience of using compliant Web sites is vastly improved, and untold economies have been realized by the developers of both. Rarely has any circumstance in information technology been quite so "win/win/win."
We've seen the various complications that attend technical solutions to the problems of everyware. And we also have abundant reason to believe that governmental regulation of development, by itself, is unlikely to produce the most desirable outcomes. But in the saga of Web standards, we have an object lesson in the power of bottom-up self-regulation to achieve ends in technological development that are both complex and broadly beneficial.
So I see a real hope in the idea that a constituency of enlightened developers and empowered users will attend the rise of everyware, demanding responsible and compassionate design of ubiquitous technology. I further hope that the principles I've offered here are a meaningful contribution to the discussion, that they shed some light on what responsible and compassionate everyware might look like.
I have one final thought on the question of principles and self-guided development. It's clear that an approach such as the one I've outlined here will require articulate, knowledgeable, energetic, and above all visible advocacy if it has any chance of success. But it requires something else, as well: a simple, clear way for users and consumers to know when a system whose adoption they are