home platform provider. Friday, 25 May 2012 Although there are about a hundred of us, we are still a startup, with a few thousand mostly early adopter users of the direct to consumer services we been releasing since 2007. These days we are mostly B2B focused, soon to be launching large scale commercial services through partners such as energy companies, DIY retailers and more.
but Iʼve not been there long and canʼt yet show you our current design redevelopment work. So bear in mind that any AlertMe designs in this presentation will be old, and due for improvement. CAUTION: OUTDATED DESIGN Friday, 25 May 2012
sensors/devices and the hub. The hub connects to the cloud service via broadband or GPRS and the user interacts with the service via a secure website and mobile apps. Heating controls Energy monitor In-home display Smart plug Camera Contact sensor Key fobs Motion sensor Hub Friday, 25 May 2012
support soon, some through 3rd party devices: • Home safety: e.g. flood monitors, smoke alarms, medicine and gun cabinets (US!) • Holiday home, RV, car and boat monitoring • Elderly care: panic buttons, activity monitoring • Pet care: cat flaps, automatic feeders • Automation: light switches, electrical sockets, window blinds • Connected appliances: ovens, dishwashers, tumble dryers NB: no internet fridges, thankfully Friday, 25 May 2012
market • It was difficult to install • The cost of ownership was high • Too many competing and proprietary standards meant poor interoperability • Usability was poor: it was strictly geek territory • Users were unconvinced of the value of a central home brain X10 Powerhouse for the C64: 1986 Let you schedule lights and appliances to turn on and off, control a burglar alarm and thermostat, and could be operated remotely by telephone. Sound familiar? Connected home technology has existed since at least as far back as 1975 Friday, 25 May 2012
• More open standards increase interoperability • Design is (slowly) improving to make it easier for non-geeks • Greater acceptance of “little bits of smartness”: connectivity and embedded computing in everyday objects • We have a metaphor for a “remote control for your life”: the smartphone But things are changing Friday, 25 May 2012 There are other companies doing or researching some or all of these things too: you may have heard of iControl, Nest, Opower, Microsoft HomeOS...
are less in the technology and more in understanding what the mass market actually needs. Friday, 25 May 2012 This is not ʻthe proximate futureʼ referred to by Bell and Dourish: the discourse around ubiquitous computing was always ʻin the future we will have xʼ, yet the future kept arriving and we still didnʼt. These are commercial services. They are not quite mass market yet, but they are heading that way. I promise you that the challenge is less in the technology than it is in understanding what the mass market needs and designing it appropriately for them.
in response to an event: e.g. if the alarm goes off turn on a light and record video. This example is from AlertMeʼs home monitoring service. Automation can also be user controlled: e.g. when I come home, turn certain lights on and ensure the heating is set to a comfortable temperature.
buttons to modify temperature. Wattbox learns your behaviour preferences.” 4: intelligence Friday, 25 May 2012 Intelligence: system learns and tries to figure out how to work appropriately. e.g. AlertMeʼs Wattbox intelligent heating controller, which learns when you are in, out and asleep by monitoring electrical activity in the house and uses clever psychological tricks to overcome the irrational, energy wasting behaviours humans tend to engage in when put in charge of a thermostat. We believe to be cleverer than Nest, if perhaps not as pretty. Itʼs a lot cheaper though. (NB this is an old design for Wattbox)
not yet at the stage of being able to show you designs, or tell you how weʼve cracked the perfect process for UX in this area. Rest assured, weʼre pretty busy. I look forward to showing more soon. But with my colleagues, I have been working on understanding what this technology could do for people, where it often goes wrong for people, and defining what I think a good connected home UX might look like. Here are a few of those principles.
actions appropriately across devices Consistency: What should, and should not, be the same on each device Continuity: Seamless synchronisation of data and content See http://bugi.oulu.fi/~ksegerst/publications/p219-waljas.pdf Friday, 25 May 2012 Interusability: usability for services composed of interconnected devices. Important to create the experience of interacting with the service: the device is just an avatar of that service. See Minna Wäljas et al paper in the references. Composition: Using the right devices for the right actions, distributing tasks appropriately between devices so that the mental model is clear. Consistency: Consistency isnʼt an absolute, it must be appropriate. Where you have a wide variety of devices there are multiple levels of consistency which come into conflict, the primary type is usually to the platform, but task mental model, and terminology must be same: It must be possible to tell which things are the same across devices. E.g. diagrams up to date in instructions. Continuity: If i interact with the service on one device, all other devices reflect that change in state. e.g. if I turn the target heating temperature up on my physical thermostat, the new temperature should be immediately reflected on the smartphone too otherwise thereʼll be a confusing period when I have two devices saying different things. Not that easy to implement!
at home. Life is full of contradictions and shades of grey. Itʼs all a bit fuzzy but hey, we get by. Friday, 25 May 2012 e.g. Little Jack isnʼt normally allowed to watch that much TV, but today heʼs ill so youʼre feeling sorry for him. e.g. The sheets ought to be washed but everyoneʼs busy so theyʼll do for a bit longer.
have access permissions • One phone/keyfob = one user • Users are at home, or not at home • Itʼs oh-so-simple and binary Friday, 25 May 2012 This is the (very old) AlertMe home monitoring homepage.
Friday, 25 May 2012 The Microsoft HomeOS team take the view that people understand computers, with users, access permissions and suchlike, and that that makes this a suitable metaphor for a smarthome. This causes them to say things like “Users could manage their deployment.”
lifestyles •Teenagers skulk in bedrooms: they may be ʻinʼ but are not to be considered ʻpresentʼ •Devices are shared, and lent •Whoʼs allowed to do what is negotiated and flexible, not completely codified People are not binary Friday, 25 May 2012
Itʼs the home This one happens to be my home. I donʼt want to log into it, become a super user, or worry that itʼs going to crash or bug me with irritating little popups. sudo open-window Friday, 25 May 2012
the world I want to feel out of control. And weʼve all seen how people often feel out of control of computers when they are too hard to use or do things we donʼt understand. Friday, 25 May 2012
pervasive technologies to empower people with information that helps them make decisions, but we do not want to strip people of their sense of control over their environment.” The MIT House_n group Friday, 25 May 2012 A more humanistic approach?
they need repairing before they break down, are a lot less threatening than a huge ever-growing pulsating brain that rules from the centre of your living room. Those little bits can still connect to each other, but you donʼt have to buy into the whole system in one go. Friday, 25 May 2012 “Little bits of smartness” - Matt Jones.
before you go to bed. Donʼt you know thereʼs a WAR out there? Friday, 25 May 2012 Comcast XFinity alarm system screenshots. Itʼs all a bit Andy McNab. This might be forgivable from a company specialising in alarm tech, but these are also the people who bring you films and telly so youʼd think theyʼd consider the wider home context.
it should stop feeling homely, whatever that means to me. Experience design should reflect the feeling of home as a safe and comfortable place. Friday, 25 May 2012 See T Saizmaa article in references.
house •They may want different things •They are not just users, they have interpersonal dynamics •Some of them are visitors or impromptu guests Friday, 25 May 2012
it •Itʼs often possible to work out who is doing what •When parties have different ideas about how things should be, that surfaces tensions 21 °C 19 °C Friday, 25 May 2012
a shower” A recent research participant Tension between the person who uses the energy monitor and the people who use the appliances is common Friday, 25 May 2012
bad enough, try fighting over the house We need to design tools that meet the needs of the whole household We need to support casual users Maybe we need to design tools that allow some people to opt out sometimes Friday, 25 May 2012
clothes clean with a minimum of water and electricity. Unfortunately it was designed on the premise that this must be the most interesting and important thing in my life Friday, 25 May 2012 It beeps when itʼs finished a load. That is fine. But it doesnʼt stop beeping until you empty it. It expects you to drop everything and come running, right now, because the washing must come out IMMEDIATELY. This is appropriate behaviour from a burglar alarm, but not a washing machine. How about a little contextual awareness? Like only beeping when Iʼm actually in the kitchen?
to need more, not less attention Friday, 25 May 2012 It canʼt accept that no-one else is interested in fridge stuff... they only care about what is in the fridge.
how and when to ask for attention politely to preserve that peace of mind If my burglar alarm is going off, thatʼs important: make sure I get the message When things are unremarkable, shut up and get on with it Friday, 25 May 2012
(2006) http://web.media.mit.edu/~intille/papers-files/IntilleICOST06.pdf Minna Wäljas, Katarina Segerståhl, Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Harri Oinas-Kukkonen: Cross- Platform Service User Experience: A Field Study and an Initial Framework (Nordichi 2010) http://bugi.oulu.fi/~ksegerst/publications/p219-waljas.pdf Colin Dixon, Ratul Mahajan, Sharad Agarwal, AJ Brush, Bongshin Lee, Stefan Saroiu, and Victor Bahl, An Operating System for the Home (NSDI, USENIX, April 2012) Pertti Huuskonen: Run to the Hills! Ubiquitous Computing Meltdown (Advances in Ambient Intelligence, 2007) Peter Tolmie, James Pycock, Tim Diggins. Allan Maclean, Alain Karsenty, Unremarkable Computing (Ubiquity, 2002). Genevieve Bell & Paul Dourish: Yesterdayʼs tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computingʼs dominant vision (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 2006) http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/ubicomp/BellDourish-YesterdaysTomorrows.pdf Scott Davidoff, Min Kyung Lee, Charles Yiu, John Zimmerman, and Anind K. Dey: Principles of Smart Home Control (Ubicomp 2006) T Saizmaa, A Holistic Understanding of HCI Perspectives on Smart Home, Networked Computing and Advanced Information Management, 2008. NCM '08 Friday, 25 May 2012
Office by Phil Whitehouse Shopping basket by Jonathan Harford X10 Powerhouse from atarimagazine.com Internet fridge from fuckyeahinternetfridge.tumblr.com Messy House by Elizabeth Table4Five Trapped by Merina Computer by Phil Gold Crying child by eggonstilts Simpsons Ultrahome3000 from Simpsons Wiki Toilet roll doll from acceptandchange.com Army from hdwallpapers.com Tea cosy by Brixton Makerhood Teeth by ktpupp Sleeping by Stan Frustration by dieselbug2007 Washing machine firmware error by Adam Crickett Servant bells by davidgsteadman Friday, 25 May 2012
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