Supporting Human Activities — Exploring Activity-Centered Computing

In this paper we explore an activity-centered computing paradigm that is aimed at supporting work processes that are radically different from the ones known from office work. Our main inspiration is healthcare work that is characterized by an extreme degree of mobility, many interruptions, ad-hoc collaboration based on shared material, and organized in terms of well-defined, recurring, work activities. We propose that this kind of work can be supported by a pervasive computing infrastructure together with domain-specific services, both designed from a perspective where work activities are first class objects. We also present an exploratory prototype design and first implementation and present some initial results from evaluations in a healthcare environment.