About composing our own smart home
Joëlle Coutaz, Emeric Fontaine, Nadine Mandran, Alexandre Demeure · 2010
This paper reports on an empirical study performed to validate a theoretical model about the composition of smart artifacts by end-users. We have solicited 17 families and used a combination of interviews and a playful cultural probe. Results show that families are willing to couple smart objects to improve their lives, and that the theoretical questions raised by our model are sound. New services are more easily envisioned when coupling involves a "communicating" object or a "programmable" object. Being a communicating object has more impact than being programmable. Services envisioned by families included: Service substitution (e.g., replacing the user interface of the alarm clock with that of the time setting available on mobile phones); Service improvement (e.g., extending appliances such as the washing machine, by coupling them with the interaction resources of the TV set); Service chaining as ready for use "packages" to improve well-being for routine activities; along with Service "starters" as a means to control packages. Other findings are related to the playful cultural probe. Based on pictures of objects taken by the family members, our probe served as an ice-breaker; family members "revealed their house" naturally and the use of images of intimate objects increased interest and imagination.