Transcript Ubicomp: Smart Homes #2 Thursday March 22nd 2007 Broken Expectations in the Digital Home Bly, Rosario, Schilit, Saint-Hilaire, McDonald.

Ubicomp:
Smart Homes #2
Thursday March 22nd 2007
Broken Expectations in the Digital
Home
Bly, Rosario, Schilit, Saint-Hilaire, McDonald
overview
• Researching ease of use of digital home
technologies
– Trying to understand the overhead or ‘problem-time’
for home network use
• ‘Broken expectations’ are often the cause of
problems
• Broken expectations are when a user’s mental
model of a device inaccurately depicts the
functionality or capabilities of the device
The technology is reliable
If it ain’t broke, why doesn’t it work?
“The only problem is that it will never
happen the way the industry imagines it.
For one thing the digital home is
fiendishlycomplex. The teenager in the
family would have to become full-time
unpaid tech support…” – Andreas Kluth
Contributions of paper
• raise the discussion of digital living ease-of-use
and seamless interoperability to the level of
everyday human activities with complex
technology configurations
• provide a set of illustrative examples of broken
expectations
• present implications for further research in user
expectations for the digital home.
Methodologies of study
• Team member diary studies
• ethnographic-style home interviews
(w/ very tech-savvy participants)
• Online survey
Interviews
• Research found people
– Using workarounds
– Upgrading to accommodate
– Unable to integrate some devices
– Giving up on tasks
Findings
• most problems not due to broken or
malfunctioning software or hardware
• many problems were unanticipated
better understandings of broken
expectations are needed
• How are expectations formed?
• how are a multiple interconnected
activities a cause of problems?
Should broken expectations be expected?
Innovation, state-of-the-art vs.
Comfort, convention
• How can we avoid ‘breaking’
expectations?
The evolution of buildings and
implications for the design of
ubiquitous domestic environments
• Rodden, Bedford
“We call our work "ubiquitous computing".
This is different from PDA's, dynabooks, or
information at your fingertips. It is invisible,
everywhere computing that does not live
on a personal device of any sort, but is in
the woodwork everywhere.”
- Mark Weiser
instant ubicomp home (just add water)
vs.
the evolution of buildings, environments
The home as a ubiquitous
computing environment
• new user groups
• impact of broader cultural values
• the need to support activities other than
work
Goals of study
• relate the diverse set of activities involved in
ubiquitous domestive environments to each
other
• place ubiquitous computing for domestic
environments in the broader context of how
buildings change
• outline some new challenges for research into
ubiquitous domestic environments
smart home development
approaches
• understanding of the domestic
• choosing and designing the right devices
• constructing a ubiquitous environment,
infrastructure
understanding of the domestic
• ethnographic studies
• longitudinal studies
• design based methods
choosing and designing the right
devices
• information appliances (internet fridge)
• interactive household objects (digital
picture frames, tech)
• augmented furniture (DiamondTouch
interactive table)
constructing a ubiquitous
environment, infrastructure
• new forms of context sensing (EasyLiving)
• embedded interactive technologies (smart
floor, embedded displays)
Is the smart home its own unique context?
What happens to contexts in a ubiquitous
environment?
digital infrastructures
• Jini, UPnP, Coolbase
vs.
Speakeasy, Context Toolkit
• should we be explicitly aware of our
ubiquitous systems?
evolutionary nature of the home
• technology will need to find a place within
our homes and our homes will need to
chage to accommodate this technology
• how buildings change: Brand's 6 S's
Tables from paper
• Where’s tech now?
• Where’s ubicomp?
How is change managed and
controlled
Relating activities to each other
• focus has been on the interior (Stuff, Space
Plan, Services)
• understanding the domestic (Stuff, Space Plan)
• developing digital devices (Stuff, Space Plan)
• Domestic Environments and Infrastructures
(Services)
Challenges
• homes are never static
– how are we effected by the continual change?
• homes exist in the broader context
– TV as focal point
• coordinated activity of many stakeholders
– getting all 6 S's involved
Principles of Smart Home Control
Davidoff, Lee, Yiu, Zimmerman, Dey
• End-User Programmers vs. Smart home
users
• Control of Devices vs. Control of own
lives
– people most value their time, their activities,
and their relationships
• how can we control a smart home?
• How can we feel as if we control a smart
home?
findings from ethnography of dualincome families
• enrichment activities frame the day
• even the simple is complex
• activities resist routinization
• responsibilities bleed past fixed boundaries
• breakdowns cause cascade effects
• "busyness' is a moral good
findings from ethnography of dualincome families (cont.)
• flexibility as coping strategy
• detail is acquired when necessary
• improvise
• work and home blend
• lifesyle choices
Suggested design principles
• 1. Allow for the organic evolution of routines and plans
• 2. Easily construct new behaviors and modify existing
behaviors
• 3. Understand periodic changes, exceptions and
improvisation
• 4. Design for breakdowns
• 5. Account for multiple, overlapping and occasionally
conflicting goals
• 6. The home is more than a location
• 7. Participate in the construction of family identity
Suggested design principles (cont.)
• 1.-5. adjust for, anticipate, and accommodate
people's imperfections and the complexities of
their lives
– system must be extremely flexible and intelligent
• 6. makes the 'home' system available where and
when needed
• 7. the home is a costly purchase, important
asset, and vastly interconnected social contruct how man the current home status be maintained
and how can peoples lives be further enriched