A Semantic Web Approach to Simplifying Trigger-Action Programming in the IoT

End-user programming environments for the IoT such as IFTTT rely on a multitude of low-level trigger-action rules that categorize devices and services by technology or brand. EUPont is a Semantic Web ontology that enables users to meet their needs with fewer, higher-level rules that can be adapted to different contextual situations and as-yet-unknown IoT devices and services

A Debugging Approach for Trigger-Action Programming

Nowadays, end users can customize their technological devices and web applications by means of trigger-action rules, defined through End-User Development (EUD) tools. However, debugging capabilities are important missing features in these tools that limit their large-scale adoption. Problems in trigger-action rules, in fact, can lead to unpredictable behaviors and security issues, e.g., a door that is unexpectedly unlocked. In this paper, we present a novel debugging approach for trigger-action programming. The goal is to assists end users during the composition of trigger-action rules by: a) highlighting possible problems that the rules may generate, and b) allowing their step-by-step simulation. The approach, based on Semantic Web and Petri Nets, has been implemented in a EUD tool, and it has been preliminary evaluated in a user study with 6 participants. Results provide evidence that the tool is usable, and it helps users in understanding and identifying problems in trigger-action rules

HeyTAP: Bridging the Gaps Between Users' Needs and Technology in IF-THEN Rules via Conversation

In the Internet of Things era, users are willing to personalize the joint behavior of their connected entities, i.e., smart devices and online service, by means of IF-THEN rules. Unfortunately, how to make such a personalization effective and appreciated is still largely unknown. On the one hand, contemporary platforms to compose IF-THEN rules adopt representation models that strongly depend on the exploited technologies, thus making end-user personalization a complex task. On the other hand, the usage of technology-independent rules envisioned by recent studies opens up new questions, and the identification of available connected entities able to execute abstract users' needs become crucial. To this end, we present HeyTAP, a conversational and semantic-powered trigger-action programming platform able to map abstract users' needs to executable IF-THEN rules. By interacting with a conversational agent, the user communicates her personalization intentions and preferences. User's inputs, along with contextual and semantic information related to the available connected entities, are then used to recommend a set of IF-THEN rules that satisfies the user's needs. An exploratory study on 8 end users preliminary confirms the effectiveness and the appreciation of the approach, and shows that HeyTAP can successfully guide users from their needs to specific rules

Empowering End Users in Debugging Trigger-Action Rules

End users can program trigger-action rules to personalize the joint behavior of their smart devices and online services. Trigger-action programming is, however, a complex task for non-programmers and errors made during the composition of rules may lead to unpredictable behaviors and security issues, e.g., a lamp that is continuously fashing or a door that is unexpectedly unlocked. In this paper, we introduce EUDebug, a system that enables end users to debug trigger-action rules. With EUDebug, users compose rules in a web-based application like IFTTT. EUDebug highlights possible problems that the set of all defned rules may generate and allows their step-by-step simulation. Under the hood, a hybrid Semantic Colored Petri Net (SCPN) models, checks, and simulates trigger-action rules and their interactions. An exploratory study on 15 end users shows that EUDebug helps identifying and understanding problems in trigger-action rules, which are not easily discoverable in existing platforms

RecRules: Recommending IF-THEN Rules for End-User Development

Nowadays, end users can personalize their smart devices and web applications by defining or reusing IF-THEN rules through dedicated End-User Development (EUD) tools. Despite apparent simplicity, such tools present their own set of issues. The emerging and increasing complexity of the Internet of Things, for example, is barely taken into account, and the number of possible combinations between triggers and actions of different smart devices and web applications is continuously growing. Such a large design space makes end-user personalization a complex task for non-programmers, and motivates the need of assisting users in easily discovering and managing rules and functionality, e.g., through recommendation techniques. In this paper, we tackle the emerging problem of recommending IF-THEN rules to end users by presenting RecRules, a hybrid and semantic recommendation system. Through a mixed content and collaborative approach, the goal of RecRules is to recommend by functionality: it suggests rules based on their final purposes, thus overcoming details like manufacturers and brands. The algorithm uses a semantic reasoning process to enrich rules with semantic information, with the aim of uncovering hidden connections between rules in terms of shared functionality. Then, it builds a collaborative semantic graph, and it exploits different types of path-based features to train a learning to rank algorithm and compute top-N recommendations. We evaluate RecRules through different experiments on real user data extracted from IFTTT, one of the most popular EUD tool. Results are promising: they show the effectiveness of our approach with respect to other state-of-the-art algorithms, and open the way for a new class of recommender systems for EUD that take into account the actual functionality needed by end users

An Approach to Help End Users Become Aware of Privacy Risks in Home Automation

Smart home devices, such as voice assistants, smart lights, and smart video doorbells have become a part of end users' daily lives. Many of these devices combine their features with other services and smart devices to create a simple and efficient user experience. This is partly because of the contribution of end-user programming platforms, like If This Then That (IFTTT). IFTTT provides trigger and action events to end users to connect two or more smart home devices via easy-to-create applets. However, these applets rarely highlight underlying risks related to confidentiality (leakage of sensitive information) or integrity (authorized access) violations. Prior work has shown that providing users with violation scenarios makes them aware of the risks associated with these specific applets. However, these works have not investigated if end users can identify potential risks from the applet descriptions and change their behavior. This thesis closes this gap by (1) presenting end users with “consequences” of using IFTTT applets to understand if end users could find the possible violations and their reasoning, and (2) evaluating whether end users’ behavior changes when applets are presented with the consequences. In this work, we conducted a user study with 20 participants to evaluate our approach of including consequences in applet description. Our results show that adding potential consequences into the basic IFTTT applet description can help end users discover integrity and confidentiality violations and related factors impacting their applet usage decisions. Finally, we suggest a framework to automatically nudge end users when they want to use applets through end-user programming platforms. In this way, end users can have a comprehensive understanding of using applets in different contexts

Identifying principles of human-computer interface in IOT devices : a South African context

Dissertation (MCom (Informatics))--University of Pretoria, 2022.With an increasing number of households implementing smart home technology in South Africa, it is important to understand if the Internet of Things (IoT) devices are enhancing the user’s quality of life as well as meeting their needs and expectations. Identifying and incorporating the Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) component when building an IoT device can assist with ensuring that the smart device meets the useability requirement and addresses the challenges and concerns raised by end users. As the end user is required to install and manage the smart device by themselves, the smart device manufacturers must ensure that these devices are easy to set up and can be managed by both technical and non-technical users. IoT devices require data to be fully functional and perform their necessary tasks. IoT data collection is an ongoing discussion as the end user might not be entirely comfortable with the collection and sharing of their personal home data with device manufacturers. HCI designers, therefore, are required to consider end users' emotions regarding their security concerns. Hence, the purpose of this research is to study the principles of HCI in an IoT device. The objective is to add to the existing body of knowledge related to building computation devices around HCI principles. This interpretive case study used two qualitative data collection methods to answer the research questions: a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire focused on gathering insights into the current user experience with smart home devices and identifying challenges or concerns raised by the device users. The semi-structured interviews focused on gathering information on the inclusion of HCI when designing an IoT device, IoT data and the IoT security element, from the employees of the organisation in the case study. The research findings indicated that while the participants have adapted to installing and managing their smart home devices, there were several usage challenges and concerns Page 2 of 146 that need to be addressed. Several of the research participants were unaware of the smart device collecting usage data and therefore, the requirement to educate end users on data collection and usage is highlighted in the study. Key design components of the IoT were highlighted by the interview participants and several methods were also suggested to enhance the user experience of IoT devices.InformaticsMCom (Informatics)Unrestricte