Treading Uncommon Ground: Designing for New Shared Experiences through Appropriation

To construct design strategies for the appropriation of everyday common technology, we adopt Clark's theory of language use as a framework for the creation of meaning, practice, and convention. We then discuss other language- based design strategies for appropriation, and propose a spectrum of attributes to act as a guide in the design of context-aware technology for public spaces. As an example of such a system, we present Imprints, which was designed to enhance the role of museum visitor participation beyond information receiver to an active creator of new conventions through social awareness and expressive license.