LivingLab : a white paper

Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing, 2000

The EasyLiving project is concerned with development of an arch it ectu re an d t echn ol og ies for i nt ell ig ent env iro nmen ts wh ich al lo w t he d ynamic aggregation of diverse I/O devices into a single coherent user experience. Components of such a system include middleware (to facilitate distribu ted co mpu ti ng), wo rld mod ell in g (t o pro vi de l ocat io n-b ased con tex t), perception (to collect information about world state), and service description (t o s up po rt d ecomp os it io n o f dev ice co nt rol , i nt ernal lo gi c, and us er in terface). This paper describes the current research in each of these areas, highlighting some common requirements for any intelligent environment.

2017

Nowadays, smart devices populate our environments, providing services and being more and more interactive and user-friendly. However, they usually require a centralised unit that processes all the dialogues to produce an answer. On the other hand, ubiquitous and pervasive solutions are a valid alternative, but it is hard to arrange them in a well-organised environment. In this thesis, I question if a ubiquitous infrastructure can be reactive, flexible and scalable without disadvantaging a uniform environment. Reactivity defines rapid interactions; flexibility concerns both network issues and interactions with users, through customised interfaces; scalability, instead, ensures that the adopted model does not have constrained networks' size. This investigation focuses on Human-Computer Interaction studies, because people without a required technological background will be the final users of the system. I propose a novel distributed model where each node is a device that can indepe...

Mobile computing and positioning technology merge physical and virtual reality. This hybrid space requires us to look beyond conventional interface designs in search of new forms of interaction that will work in open-ended systems. In contrast to the safety of the virtual desktop, physical reality is open-ended. Challenges to the design of an interface that must function in a constantly changing world involve practical issues and defining new conceptual models of interaction. The practical, low resolution on visual displays with animation may be a viable solution to changing resolution, distortions, and scattered user attention. The conceptual approach taken is to avoid unnecessary encodings in the interface and instead build on causal relations between the interface and the immediate environment whenever possible.

Ambient Intelligence, 2005

As technologies in the area of storage, connectivity and displays evolve rapidly and business developments point to the direction of the experience economy, the vision of Ambient Intelligence is positioning human needs central to technology development. This chapter describes concerted research efforts surrounding the HomeLab, a special research instrument that supports scientific investigations of the interaction between humans and technology. Such investigations reach beyond traditional usability and technology acceptance, aiming to characterize the nature of user experiences, measuring them and designing them. Starting from a historical view upon the vision of Ambient Intelligence, this chapter presents the HomeLab, the rationale for its set-up and three related studies that were conducted within it. These studies have focused on technology use at home for leisure purposes; more specifically they have explored the experience of immersion from displays that extend beyond screen boundaries to encompass the lighting in a room, and the experience of social presence and connectedness with remote friends and family as they result from peripheral awareness displays.

One of the striking aspects of world-wide-web is how it has empowered ordinary non-technical people to participate in a digital revolution by transforming the way services such as shopping, education and entertainment are offered and consumed. The proliferation of networked appliances, sensors and actuators, such as those found in digital homes heralds a similar ‘sea change’ in the capabilities of ordinary people to customise and utilise the electronic spaces they inhabit. By coordinating the actions of networked devices or services, it is possible for the environment to behave in a holistic and reactive manner to satisfy the occupants needs; creating an intelligent environment. Further, by deconstructing traditional home appliances into sets of more elemental network accessible services, it is possible to reconstruct either the original appliance or to create new user defined appliances by combining basic network services in novel ways; creating a so called virtual appliance. This principle can be extended to decompose and recompose software applications allowing users to create their own bespoke applications. Collectively, such user created entities are referred to as Meta – appliances or –applications, more generally abbreviated to MAps. Deconstruction and user customized MAps raise exciting possibilities for occupants of future intelligent environments, and sets significant research challenges [Chin 09]. For example, how can MAps be constructed and managed by ordinary non-expert home occupants? At one extreme it is possible to use artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and equipment, such as autonomous intelligent agents. These monitor an occupants habitual behaviour, modelling their behaviours, and creating rule-based profiles (self programming) so they can preemptively set the environment to what they anticipate the user would like [Augusto 06]. However, some people have privacy concerns about what is being recorded, when it is being recorded and to whom (or what) any information is communicated. These concerns are particularly acute with autonomous agents, in which people have little direct control. Such matters are especially sensitive when the technology is used in the private space of someone’s home. Frequently, endusers are given very little choice in setting-up digital home technology and are obliged to accept whatever is offered [Callaghan et-al 08]. Apart from the issues of privacy and trust, we argue that creativity is an essential and distinctive human quality, and that many people would enjoy the process of creating their own novel networked appliances and personalising their ’electronic spaces’, providing they can be shielded from unnecessary technical complexity. This has parallels to the common practice of people decorating their own homes with paintings, walls hangings, pictures, colour schemes and furniture. This rationale has led many researchers to investigate what is termed ‘end-user programming’, a methodology aimed at allowing non-technical people to personalise their own digital spaces with network enabled embedded-computer based devices. Historically, programming has only been accessible to well-qualified professionals, such as computer scientists, or the outcome of self-programming (learning) using autonomous intelligent agents. The challenge for achieving an end-user programming vision is to devise programming methodologies that are usable by non-technical people. In this chapter we begin by reviewing current research into end-user programming systems, especially those for the home. We describe approaches that range from transposing conventional programming constructs into graphical or physical iconic objects, to those that adopt radically new programming metaphors. By way of an example of these new approaches, we describe a novel end-user programming approach developed at the University of Essex called Pervasiveinteractive- Programming (PiP) (UK patent No. GB0523246.7) and a service coordination model known as Meta-Appliances/Applications (MAps). We report on an evaluation of user experiences using PiP in a digital home, the University of Essex iSpace. We conclude this chapter by reflecting on the main findings of our work.