Deploying an interactive pervasive computing environment in a public setting can be very rewarding, but also very challenging. This paper describes interesting lessons learned from three very different public deployments in Lancaster University’s e-Campus project.

The authors describe 13 lessons that summarize their different experiences, and should be welcomed by others attempting similar feats. One of their systems included a 14-day exhibition attended by over 1,700 visitors, including an enticing e-Campus brewery installation. Many of the lessons deal with higher-level issues, such as management of the facilities, 24/7 heating and cooling, the importance and issues of interactive distributed content updates, and maintenance deployment processes. Other lessons deal with content delivery, costs, remote monitoring, and especially “defining the user experience,” so that the public deployments can support orchestrated performances.

The entire set of lessons is well defined, represents some rather unique challenges faced by the authors’ team, and provides a concise collection from which others can learn. The paper is not a treatise on pervasive ubiquitous computing, but hopefully the authors can present their architecture in another forum. In particular, information on their design for a constraint-based content delivery scheduler would be welcome.