Home Worlds: Situating domestic computing in everyday life through a study of DIY home repair

Abstract

We draw on a qualitative study of homeowners who engage in do-it-yourself (DIY) home repair and introduce “home worlds” as a conceptual lens to understand how interactions with the home as a built environment (local and mechanical engagements with its material components) are situated in broad, diffuse, and constraint-rich social worlds. A “home worlds” perspective challenges domestic computing inquiries to adopt a broader orientation when considering a home’s users and requirements; our case of home repair, in particular, provokes us to consider the home as embedded in communities and framed in relation to the precarious constraints of everyday life. We discuss how these insights open up new avenues for future research and design of collaborative domestic computing technologies.