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Greenberg, S. (1999)
Designing Computers As Public Artifacts. International Journal of Design Computing: Special Issue on Design Computing on the Net (DCNet’99) University of Sydney, November 30 – December 3.
Type: Refereed journal.

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Abstract.
In this paper, I explore the notion of designing computers as a public artifact. As a public artifact, information held by the computer can be seen, heard, and acted upon in an easy and natural way by the people inhabiting the area around the computer. I explore what I and others mean by computers as public artifact, and tell anecdotes that illustrate situations where computers have been used in public ways. I recast these as lessons learnt, and derive from them a list of design points. I include an example of a public artifact we are now building called the dynamic photo, and show how it responds to these particular design points.

Keywords: CSCW, ubiquitous computing, ambient displays, media spaces.