Sensible appliances: applying context-awareness to appliance design

A sensible appliance is an appliance which understands a users situation and takes appropriate actions to provide a high-quality user experience. A sensible appliance should be able to collect and infer relevant contexts to understand the users situation. It is important for designers to understand context-awareness and its impact on design. In this paper, we introduce what context and context-awareness are by using data from our survey on existing work in the area. Then, we present our categorization of existing appliances based on their contextualness. Finally, as a design case study of context-aware appliances, we describe our work on the Gate Reminder—a ubiquitous and context-aware reminder appliance built into a front door to remind users of things they should take with them when leaving home, and messages they should be aware of before going out.     

UIML: an appliance-independent XML user interface language

Today's Internet appliances feature user interface technologies almost unknown a few years ago: touch screens, styli, handwriting and voice recognition, speech synthesis, tiny screens, and more. This richness creates problems. First, different appliances use different languages: WML for cell phones; SpeechML, JSML, and VoxML for voice enabled devices such as phones; HTML and XUL for desktop computers, and so on. Thus, developers must maintain multiple source code families to deploy interfaces to one information system on multiple appliances. Second, user interfaces differ dramatically in complexity (e.g, PC versus cell phone interfaces). Thus, developers must also manage interface content. Third, developers risk writing appliance-specific interfaces for an appliance that might not be on the market tomorrow. A solution is to build interfaces with a single, universal language free of assumptions about appliances and interface technology. This paper introduces such a language, the User Interface Markup Language (UIML), an XML-compliant language. UIML insulates the interface designer from the peculiarities of different appliances through style sheets. A measure of the power of UIML is that it can replace hand-coding of Java AWT or Swing user interfaces.     

Embedded web server-based home appliance networks

Powerful microcontrollers are used as parts of most home and office appliances of today. Integrating web servers to these intelligent devices will aid in controlling them over the Internet and also in creating effective user interfaces in the form of web pages. Assigning multiple functionalities to a single button on an appliance help manufacturers economize user interfaces, but, this can easily create confusion for the users. Since the cost of web-based interfaces is considerably low, they can be used to provide the infrastructure for the design of simple and more user-friendly interfaces for household appliances. Also, a web page based interface is much easier to change, when needed, as compared to a hardware interface. This paper presents a novel approach to control devices with embedded web servers over the Internet and to form device networks such that their components can make use of one another's services and functions while improving the user interfaces. The main benefits of this approach include its lightweight design, automatic configuration, and, utilization of widely available and tested network protocols of TCP/IP and HTTP. The validity of the approach has been verified through a prototype system working with real appliances.     

FReCon: a fluid remote controller for a FReely connected world in a ubiquitous environment

In this paper, we propose a Fluid Remote Controller, a general-purpose remote controller based on the ubiquitous computing view. FReCon offers remote control features over a wide range of appliances located within a room, with a unique controller implemented on portable devices like PDAs, handheld PCs, mobile phones, etc. More than the controller itself, FReCon means the whole FReely Connected world in which FReCon-enabled users and appliances interact: though acting naturally, the user can freely connect to the desired appliance, control it, disconnect from it and start communicating with another. A prototype implementation in the form of a smart TV remote controller is also described. This simple prototype makes it possible to understand the validity and the limits of our view, and give clues for further improvements.     

Spoken language and multimodal applications for electronic realities

We use the term electronic reality (ER) to encompass a broad class of concepts that mix real-world metaphors and computer interfaces. In our definition, electronic reality includes notions such as virtual reality, augmented reality, computer interactions with physical devices, interfaces that enhance 2D media such as paper or maps, and social interfaces where computer avatars engage humans in various forms of dialogue. One reason for bringing real-world metaphors to computer interfaces is that people already know how to navigate and interact with the world around them. Every day, people interact with each other, with pets, and sometimes with physical objects by using a combination of expressivemodalities, such as spoken words, lone of voice, pointing and gesturing, facial expressions, and body language. In contrast, when people typically interact with computers or appliances, interactions are unimodal, with a single method of communication such as the click of a mouse or a set of keystrokes serving to express intent. In this article, we describe our efforts to apply multimodal and spoken language interfaces to a number of ER applications, with the goal of creating an even more realistic or natural experience for the end user.     

Personalized Course Navigation Based on Grey Relational Analysis

Web personalization has quickly changed from a value-added facility to a service required in presenting large quantities of information because individual users of the Internet have various needs and preferences in seeking information. This paper presents a novel personalized recommendation system with online preference analysis in a distance learning environment called Coursebot. Users can both browse and search for course materials by using the interface of Coursebot. Moreover, the proposed system includes appropriate course materials ranked according to a users interests. In this work, an analysis measure is proposed to combine typical grey relational analysis and implicit rating, and thus a users interests are calculated from the content of documents and the users browsing behavior. This algorithms low computational complexity and ease of adding knowledge support online personalized analysis. In addition, the user profiles are dynamically revised to provide efficiently personalized information that reflects a users interests after each page is visited.     

IPv6信息家电控制界面的自动生成技术

针对基于IPv6的UPnP家庭网络，结合IPv6家庭网关在外部网络与IPv6家庭网络交互中的重要作用，设计并实现了IPv6信息家电控制界面的自动生成方案和相应的集中控制机制，应用于外网用户对基于IPv6的UPnP家庭网络中信息家电的远程控制。IPv6家庭网关根据模板文件，为基于IPv6的UPnP家庭网络中的每台信息家电自动生成统一风格的控制界面；IPv6家庭网关接收到外网用户通过控制界面提交的控制命令后，根据SOAP协议集中控制信息家电。该文的研究完善了UPnP家庭网关标准(Internet Gateway Device V1.0)。     

Interactive scenarios—building ubiquitous computing concepts in the spirit of participatory design

The amount of information technology in our everyday lives is increasing and getting more and more ambient in our daily environments. The environments are supposed to be intelligent, adaptive, intuitive and interactive in the future. User participation for future concept building is essential, but challenging, when designing appliances that might be unfamiliar in their appearance, functionality and impressiveness compared to the users current everyday life. New allocated methods and viewpoints are needed for user experience design and evaluation of intelligent environments to build systems that naturally support the users in their daily life. We present interactive scenario building together with potential users (including role-playing, drama and improvisational aspects) as one promising tool for early concept definition phase.     

TimeSpace: activity-based temporal visualisation of personal information spaces

Users personal information spaces are characterized by their content, organisation, and ongoing user interaction with them. They are fluid entities, evolving over time, and supporting multiple user activities that may require different perspectives of the same underlying information structure. Increasing storage capacity of computing devices and ready access to networked resources puts users at risk of information overload, and presents increasing challenges in organising and accessing their information. The hierarchical model of information organisation currently dominates personal computing, and is realised for the user in interfaces that help to manage and access filestore hierarchies. Such a model provides limited inherent support for what users do—carry out a range of interleaved activities over time. In this paper, we describe the TimeSpace system, which provides perspectives on a users information resources based on activities and temporal attributes of the information. TimeSpace can be used alongside, or in place of, existing systems and models (such as the Microsoft Windows hierarchical file model). User interaction with an information space is non-intrusively observed and then represented automatically in TimeSpace. Visualisations provide overviews of user activity on multiple projects and detailed views of activity within particular projects, allowing navigation forward and backward in time. An observational study of use of the system revealed positive user views of the utility of temporal, activity-oriented workspaces in real world contexts alongside existing tools. Participants appreciated being offered a different perspective on their electronic information collection, one that visually shows the composition and development of their information space. They were interested in using the system for current and long-term work as well as for archiving information, as the visualisations provide a context for their work and give an overview of all their work in progress. The ideas embodied by the system and its visualisations show promise and raise a number of issues for further exploration. In future work, these ideas will be adapted and extended to support users in managing their information spaces across multiple personal devices, locations and time.     

An Agenda- and Justification-Based Framework for Discovery Systems

We propose and evaluate an agenda- and justification-based architecture for discovery systems that selects the next tasks to perform, as well as heuristics for use in discovery systems. This framework has many desirable properties: (1) it selects its own tasks to perform based upon how plausible they are judged to be; (2) it facilitates the encoding of general discovery strategies using a variety of background knowledge; and (3) it tailors its behavior toward a users interests. Many experiments with a prototype discovery program called HAMB demonstrate that both reasons and estimates of interestingness contribute to performance in the domains of protein crystallization and patient rehabilitation data. The programs heuristics provide good initial solutions to problems encountered when implementing fully autonomous discovery systems.     

A rapid prototyping software infrastructure for user interfaces in ubiquitous augmented reality

Recent user interface concepts, such as multimedia, multimodal, wearable, ubiquitous, tangible, or augmented-reality-based (AR) interfaces, each cover different approaches that are all needed to support complex human–computer interaction. Increasingly, an overarching approach towards building what we call ubiquitous augmented reality (UAR) user interfaces that include all of the just mentioned concepts will be required. To this end, we present a user interface architecture that can form a sound basis for combining several of these concepts into complex systems. We explain in this paper the fundamentals of DWARFs user interface framework (DWARF standing for distributed wearable augmented reality framework) and an implementation of this architecture. Finally, we present several examples that show how the framework can form the basis of prototypical applications.     

Fuzzy-based estimation of continuous Z-distances and discrete directions of home appliances for NIR camera-based gaze tracking system

With the development of eye gaze tracking technology, much research has been performed to adopt this technology for interfacing with home appliances by severely disabled and wheelchair-bound users. For this purpose, two cameras are usually required, one for calculating the gaze position of the user, and the other for detecting and recognizing the home appliance. In order to accurately calculate the gaze position on the home appliance that the user looks at, the Z-distance and direction of the home appliance from the user should be correctly measured. Therefore, stereo cameras or depth-measuring devices such as Kinect are necessary, but they have limitations such as the need for additional camera calibration, and low acquisition speed for two cameras or a large-size of Kinect device. To overcome this problem, we propose a new method for estimating the continuous Z-distances and discrete directions of home appliances using one (small-sized) near-infrared (NIR) web camera and a fuzzy system. Experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately estimate the Z-distances and directions to home appliances.     

Using large tables on small display devices

The next evolutionary step in wireless Internet information management is to provide support for tasks, which may be collaborative and may include multiple target devices, from desktop to handheld. This means that the information architecture supports the processes of the task, recognizes group interaction, and lets users migrate seamlessly among internet-compatible devices without losing the thread of the session. If users are free to migrate amongst devices during the course of a session then intelligent transformation of data is required to exploit the screen size and input characteristics of the target appliance with minimal loss of task effectiveness.In this paper we first review general characteristics related to the performance of users on small screens and then examine the navigation of full tables on small screens for users in multi-device scenarios. We examine the methodologies available for access to full tables in environments where the full table cannot be viewed in its entirety. In particular, we examine the situation where users are collaborating across platform and referring to the same table of data. We ask three basic questions: Does screen size affect the performance of table lookup tasks? Does a search function improve performance of table lookup based tasks on reduced screen sizes? Does including context information improve the performance of table lookup based tasks on reduced screen sizes? The answers to these questions are important as individual and intuitive responses are used by the designers of small screen interfaces for use with large tables of data. We report on the results of a user study that examines factors that may affect the use of large tables on small display devices. The use of large tables on small devices in their native state becomes important in at least two circumstances. First, when collaboration involves two or more users sharing a view of data when the individual screen sizes are different. Second, when the exact table structure replication may be critical as a user moves quickly from a larger to a smaller screen or back again mid-task. Performance is measured by both effectiveness, correctness of result, and efficiency, effort to reach a result.     

Robotic smart house to assist people with movement disabilities

This paper introduces a new robotic smart house, Intelligent Sweet Home, developed at KAIST in Korea, which is based on several robotic agents and aims at testing advanced concepts for independent living of the elderly and people with disabilities. The work focuses on technical solutions for human-friendly assistance in motion/mobility and advanced human-machine interfaces that provide simple control of all assistive robotic systems and home-installed appliances. The smart house concept includes an intelligent bed, intelligent wheelchair, and robotic hoist for effortless transfer of the user between bed and wheelchair. The design solutions comply with most of the users’ requirements and suggestions collected by a special questionnaire survey of people with disabilities. The smart house responds to the user's commands as well as to the recognized intentions of the user. Various interfaces, based on hand gestures, voice, body movement, and posture, have been studied and tested. The paper describes the overall system structure and explains the design and functionality of some main system components.     

Palmtop programmable appliance controls

Palmtop PCs with infrared transceivers provide a user-friendly, intelligent, and extensible alternative to the remote controls traditionally used to control home appliances. We describe the design and implementation of a palmtop programmable appliance control system. The system is designed around RDL, a domain specific language, allowing the realisation of virtual remote control units and sophisticated interaction sequences. The multitude and diversity of control applica-tions programmed in RDL point towards a new appliance control paradigm based on a client-server architecture and intelligent user interfaces.     

Exploring the role of experience and compatibility in using mobile technologies

Advancements in mobile technologies hold the promise to reshape the way professionals work. With the help of these Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), employees can break free from the bounds of spatial and temporal constraints, being able to use the technology to work anywhere, anytime. However, hardly any research to date has attempted to understand the (voluntary) acceptance process of transitioning from a static desktop to a mobile environment. Therefore, the primary objective of this paper is to examine antecedents of an adoption decision for mobile (or ubiquitous) devices. Besides arguing that the notion of adoption becomes a different meaning in a mobile environment, we hypothesize that usage of a mobile device is mainly determined by a users compatibility perceptions between the desktop environment and the target system. In addition, we argue that prior experience plays a major role in determining these compatibility notions.     

Delegation of cryptographic servers for capture-resilient devices

A device that performs private key operations (signatures or decryptions), and whose private key operations are protected by a password, can be immunized against offline dictionary attacks in case of capture by forcing the device to confirm a password guess with a designated remote server in order to perform a private key operation. Recent proposals for achieving this allow untrusted servers and require no server initialization per device. In this paper we extend these proposals to enable dynamic delegation from one server to another; i.e., the device can subsequently use the second server to secure its private key operations. One application is to allow a user who is traveling to a foreign country to temporarily delegate to a server local to that country the ability to confirm password guesses and aid the users device in performing private key operations, or in the limit, to temporarily delegate this ability to a token in the users possession. Another application is proactive security for the devices private key, i.e., proactive updates to the device and servers to eliminate any threat of offline password guessing attacks due to previously compromised servers.Received: November 2001, Accepted: January 2003, Extended abstract appears in Proceedings of the 8 ^th ACM Symposium on Computer and Communications Security, November 2001.     

Designing for augmented attention: Towards a framework for attentive user interfaces

Attentive user interfaces are user interfaces that aim to support the user’s attentional capacities. By sensing the users’ attention for objects and people in their everyday environment, and by treating user attention as a limited resource, these interfaces avoid today’s ubiquitous patterns of interruption. Focusing upon attention as a central interaction channel allows development of more sociable methods of communication and repair with ubiquitous devices. Our methods are analogous to human turn taking in group communication. Turn taking improves the user’s ability to conduct foreground processing of conversations. Attentive user interfaces bridge the gap between the foreground and periphery of user activity in a similar fashion, allowing users to move smoothly in between.We present a framework for augmenting user attention through attentive user interfaces. We propose five key properties of attentive systems: (i) to sense attention; (ii) to reason about attention; (iii) to regulate interactions; (iv) to communicate attention and (v) to augment attention.     

Motivating Human–Agent Interaction: Transferring Insights from Behavioral Marketing to Interface Design

The understanding of consumer interaction with online EC Websites is one of the big current challenges for online marketers. The present paper investigates what drives and impedes Net customers to interact with a marketer's websites and, more specifically, with decision support interface systems (DSISs) employed in these sites to assist users when shopping or searching for high-involvement consumer goods. DSIS are considered as a predecessor or partially already integrator of more elaborated agent systems that may be used in future EC environments. It is shown that the design of today's DSISs is sub-optimal for both marketers and consumers, because it fails to motivate user interaction. One reason for this might be that little effort has been made to transfer the insights from consumer behavior to the design of EC user interfaces. The current paper aims to address this gap by proposing a number of new DSIS design principles, all of which are based on insights from traditional marketing search- and perceived risk theory. The main contribution of this paper is that it proposes a design approach for EC Websites that intuitively makes the user model available to the user [Shneiderman and Maes, 36].