Learning about End-User Development for Smart Homes by "Eating Our Own Dog Food"

SPOK is an End-User Development Environment that permits people to monitor, control, and configure smart home services and devices. SPOK has been deployed for more than 4 months in the homes of 5 project team members for testing and refinement, prior to longitudinal experiments in the homes of families not involved in the project. This article reports on the lessons learned in this initial deployment

Configuring the Ubiquitous Home

Abstract. This paper presents the development of a lightweight component model that allows user to manage the introduction and arrangement of new interactive services and devices in the home. Interaction techniques developed through userparticipation enable household members – rather than designers – to configure an

Domino: exploring mobile collaborative software adaptation

Social Proximity Applications (SPAs) are a promising new area for ubicomp software that exploits the everyday changes in the proximity of mobile users. While a number of applications facilitate simple file sharing between co–present users, this paper explores opportunities for recommending and sharing software between users. We describe an architecture that allows the recommendation of new system components from systems with similar histories of use. Software components and usage histories are exchanged between mobile users who are in proximity with each other. We apply this architecture in a mobile strategy game in which players adapt and upgrade their game using components from other players, progressing through the game through sharing tools and history. More broadly, we discuss the general application of this technique as well as the security and privacy challenges to such an approach

DisQo : A user needs analysis method for smart home

International audienceHow can people identify the services that they might expect from their smart home when they have little to no knowledge about novel technologies? This paper reports on a user needs analysis method designed to answer this question: DisQo. We have recruited 17 families and used a combination of interviews and playful cultural probes. Results show that families are willing to couple smart objects to improve their lives

CollaborationBus: An Editor for the Easy Configuration of Complex Ubiquitous Environment

Early sensor-based infrastructures were often developed by experts with a thorough knowledge of base technology for sensing information, for processing the captured data, and for adapting the system’s behaviour accordingly. In this paper we argue that also end-users should be able to configure Ubiquitous Computing environments. We introduce the CollaborationBus application: a graphical editor that provides abstractions from base technology and thereby allows multifarious users to configure Ubiquitous Computing environments. By composing pipelines users can easily specify the information flows from selected sensors via optional filters for processing the sensor data to actuators changing the system behaviour according to the users’ wishes. Users can compose pipelines for both home and work environments. An integrated sharing mechanism allows them to share their own compositions, and to reuse and build upon others’ compositions. Real-time visualisations help them understand how the information flows through their pipelines. In this paper we present the concept, implementation, and early user feedback of the CollaborationBus application

Configuration of smart environments made simple combining visual modeling with semantic metadata and reasoning

We present an approach that combines semantic metadata and reasoning with a visual modeling tool to enable the goal-driven configuration of smart environments for end users. In contrast to process-driven systems where service mashups are statically defined, this approach makes use of embedded semantic API descriptions to dynamically create mashups that fulfill the user's goal. The main advantage of the presented system is its high degree of flexibility, as service mashups can adapt to dynamic environments and are fault-tolerant with respect to individual services becoming unavailable. To support end users in expressing their goals, we integrated a visual programming tool with our system. This tool enables users to model the desired state of their smart environment graphically and thus hides the technicalities of the underlying semantics and the reasoning. Possible applications of the presented system include the configuration of smart homes to increase individual well-being, and reconfigurations of smart environments, for instance in the industrial automation or healthcare domains

TechNews digests: Jan - Nov 2008

TechNews is a technology, news and analysis service aimed at anyone in the education sector keen to stay informed about technology developments, trends and issues. TechNews focuses on emerging technologies and other technology news. TechNews service : digests september 2004 till May 2010 Analysis pieces and News combined publish every 2 to 3 month

About Composing Our Own Smart Home

EUD4Services (End-User Development for Services) workshop, in Conjunction with AVI 2010, Rome, May 2010This paper reports on an empirical study designed as a follow-up of a theoretical model intended to support reasoning about the composition of smart artifacts by end users. We have solicited 17 families and used a combination of interviews and playful cultural probes. Results show that families are willing to couple smart objects to improve their lives, and that the theoretical questions raised by our model are sound