Please do not disturb

Abstract

Products in the home offer ever more functionality. Advances in sensor technology, embedded processing power, and modeling and reasoning software, have enabled everyday products to sense their environment and eventually anticipate user needs. The enabling technology for ambient intelligence is now available. Whereas in the early days most of the research was technology-oriented, nowadays increasingly the focus is on users and user experience. A next step is to create so-called considerate products that, analogous to human-human interaction, will consider the user as well as the context of use when reacting to or even anticipating a new situation. The PhD project aims to find out how user experiences of home products can be measured and modeled, and to find out how these models of experiences could be operationalized in considerate home products. Prototypes of a home atmosphere control system and a home notification system have been studied in the field as well as in a laboratory living room setting. Four user studies showed that by creating considerate products that are aware of user experiences and context of use, acceptability of product actions could be improved. The prototypes used in the studies are examples of how models of user experiences can help designers create controllable and pleasurable products for the home. The ultimate considerate home product might autonomously anticipate user needs and adapt to the context of use so that the product blends in with existing living patterns.