The User's Touch: A Design Requirement for Smart Spaces

Fernando Martínez Reyes and Chris Greenhalgh
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Fernando Martínez Reyes: The Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Mexico
Chris Greenhalgh: University of Nottingham, UK

International Journal of Advanced Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (IJAPUC), 2009, vol. 1, issue 4, 14-28

Abstract: The home of the future will be able to offer comfortable, safe and supportive home spaces. Smart systems and artefacts will know users’ routines and anticipate their needs. While the vision of the home of the future is promissory, it is the user who supports UbiComp systems, but certain technical and social challenges must be addressed before the smart home can become a reality. Unexpected human behavior makes it difficult to identify and predict domestic activity. Thus, if a system is not reliable or trusted enough to take actions on behalf of users, context-aware designs must allow for user participation to support the systems’ performance. In this article, the authors use their experience designing a context-aware system to illustrate how the users’ “touch”, that is, their active involvement, is still a requirement for today’s UbiComp designs. The configurable system described supports parents awareness of their children’s activity. Responses from a user study indicate that parents engaged positively with this kind of mediated, rather than proactive, computing-based support.

Date: 2009
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