P. Dourish and A. Friday (Eds.): Ubicomp 2006, LNCS 4206, pp. 35 – 51, 2006. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006 Historical Analysis: Using the Past to Design the Future Susan Wyche 1 , Phoebe Sengers 2 , and Rebecca E. Grinter 1 1 GVU Center College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA, USA {spwyche, beki}@cc.gatech.edu 2 Information Science Cornell University Ithaca, NY, USA sengers@cs.cornell.edu Abstract. Ubicomp developers are increasingly borrowing from other disciplines, such as anthropology and creative design, to inform their design process. In this paper, we demonstrate that the discipline of history similarly has much to offer ubicomp research. Specifically, we describe a historically- grounded approach to designing ubicomp systems and applications for the home. We present findings from a study examining aging and housework that demonstrate how our approach can be useful to sensitize ubicomp developers to the impact of cultural values on household technology, to reunderstand the home space, and to spur development of new design spaces. Our findings suggest that historically-grounded research approaches may be useful in more deeply understanding and designing for context both in and outside of the home. 1 Introduction As ubicomp moves beyond the work environment and into a broader social and cultural world, researchers are drawing on an expanding set of disciplinary perspectives to inform design. Ubicomp developers commonly employ anthropo- logical methods, most notably ethnography [e.g., 24,26,27]. Similarly, researchers borrow from art and design to develop novel ways to explore the home, such as cultural probes [13]. In this paper, we describe how ubicomp developers can borrow from another discipline useful for exploring domestic environments: history. Examining the past has previously been used to inspire new form factors and styles such as retro; we suggest that history can be further used to provide strategies that, like anthropology, unpack the culture of the home and, like art-inspired design, defamiliarize the home [2]. In this paper we present a study examining housework by older adults and describe how we integrate historical analysis into the design process. We then present findings from a study of older adults’ experiences with housework that suggest history can be beneficial in understanding the culture of the home, in defamiliarizing the home, and in spurring designers’ imaginations, thereby opening new design spaces.