Facilitated and performed 'happenings' as resources in ubiquitous computing design

Use experience has been proposed as a primary goal and driving force in interactive system design, raising the issue of how evidence can be gathered to design for ‘use experience’. According to particular views in anthropology, experience can be studied analyzing its expressions. We provide examples of this, from two projects: the configuration of open prototypes in a co-development project to create a mixed media environment to learn architecture design; and an evaluation technique for mobile and context aware services in a city centre that puts participants in the condition to express and record comments. In the discussion we propose resources for experience and its expression in ‘design happenings’: performance space, props, and interactional creativity.