Tools for interdisciplinary design of pervasive computing

Purpose - To be successful, pervasive computing requires a balance of computing, design, and business requirements to be considered throughout the design process. Achieving this synthesis requires a level of interdisciplinary design that is not present in current pervasive design tools. To understand the state of the art and provide insight to future tool designers, the purpose of this paper is to present a survey of design tools for pervasive computing and consider their ability to be used in interdisciplinary design. Design/methodology/approach - The authors have performed a survey of tools covering many areas within pervasive computing and have evaluated the abilities of each tool with established metrics for pervasive design tools. Findings - While the paper has found many design tools are available for constructive pervasive applications, few are suitable through all phases of the design cycle or useful across all the intended application domains of pervasive computing. Originality/value - This survey provides an understanding of the state of pervasive design tools, with regards to interdisciplinary design, which has not previously been performed. Additionally, the authors provide evaluations of the pervasive tools when used in an interdisciplinary setting. These evaluations provide insight to key metrics and allow tool designers to understand the needs of their intended audience.