Smart control panel: Developing conventional domestic infrastructures into ambient media

In this paper, we present novel development of domestic central heating control panel from conventional wall-mounted device to ambient media. We perform cycles of designs and evaluations in order to refine the understanding of the new media. Based on that we investigate potential methodologies to develop conventional devices into ambient media and, explore types of massages which may be provided by new ambient media

Developing advanced interface design guidelines from survey based and empirical research

The Guideline project is concerned with the interface and interaction issues of consumer product control and display devices. The main objective of the project is to produce interface design guidelines for emerging or advanced consumer based products for interaction and product designers. The information for the guidelines is being produced using two different approaches; these are empirically based guidelines produced within the project, using software based prototypes of three anticipated advanced interfaces, and information gathered from relevant human computer interaction (HCI) literature. This paper presents an account of the project as a case study and documents some of the findings that have emerged so far

Exploring the ‘interface culture’ between ergonomics and product interface design

Product and interaction designers are important beneficiaries of ergonomics research. The availability of ergonomics data, guidelines, models, methods, techniques and case studies which could be used during the design process is immense. Despite this, a review of the literature suggests that these resources are not exploited or effectively implemented within the design process due to cultural differences in design approach. However, implicit in the literature is the notion that designers have empathy and covert understanding of ergonomics principles. Two studies are described which investigate how far ergonomics methods pervade design organisations. The first study, a telephone survey, explores how and what type of current ergonomics principles are currently used in 48 commercial consulting organisations. The second study contrasts two design organisations to gain more detailed insights into how different design cultures can affect the adoption of ergonomics principles. Broad conclusions are drawn on what type of delivery mechanisms should be provided in order that the implementation of ergonomics principles is more effective

Physicality from the sidelines: potential hurdles and solutions in the development of novel interaction styles

This paper provides a pragmatic argument on how best interaction designers and researchers can influence and perhaps even guide the interaction design process of the ever accelerating digital revolution. This is done through important lessons learnt through the development of a set of design tools for a major consumer manufacturer. Principally, idiosyncratic organisational factors need to taken into account when introducing a new design approach or methodology

Designing intelligent domestic applications using wizard of oz methodology

In this paper we consider how ‘smartness’ should be designed to enhance the communication in the home. We aim to evoke a rethinking of how smart technologies should be embedded in perspectives of user needs. Through a set of experimental studies, which employ a Wizard of Oz (WoZ) as design and evaluation methodology, we observe and analyse user interactions accordingly with the wizard’s simulations. Based on experiment results, our argument is, designing smartness for communication in the home should not heavily rely on invisibly distributed sensors and networks due to interaction design misunderstandings that a large number of sensors and networks can make ambient intelligence with few user understandings. The results also argue that, smartness can be realised by first improving the integration of personal information into the environments, which is closely relevant to social routines

Designing interfaces to visualise domestic communication patterns

In this paper we propose an approach to visualise the domestic communication patterns by designing domestic interfaces. We conduct a review of literatures on the development of interaction interfaces including the design and evaluation methods, the communication patterns in the home, and the design methods for domestic infrastructures. Following an analysis of current design approaches and interface design and evaluation, we draw some implications from a practical consumption behaviour research; a study designed an unconventional control panel interface. And the evaluation results of the study provided us an illustration of new interface effectiveness by novel design approach. The study of interface design approach indicates that the pattern visualisation stretches insights into the design and understanding for domestic communicational patterns