Design for families (or homes)

1. Design for families (or homes) RikardHarr

2. Outline • What make homes interesting for HCI • What make homes difficult to study? • 3 ways of studying domestic use of IT • Participatory design and the papers • Between the dazzle • LINC, Inkable Digital Family Calendar • Concluding remarks/Student comments

3. What make homes interesting for HCI four different industries which are now viewing the home as the next site for technological development: telecommunications industry, information industry, computer industry and entertainment - many of these working in close collaboration. (Venkatesh 1995) • The home is becoming increasingly computerized • E.g. Cell Phones, PCs, wireless networks, Smart TVs, Media Centers, interconnected platforms, devices and services • A large part of all computer use takes place in homes • Different reasons for technology use than at work • More diverse user groups • Users expect true ubiquity • New challenge for researchers

4. And what makes it difficult to study • A challenge just to get access • Even the briefest ethnographic study of organisational life - perhaps best characterised by Hughes et al.’s quick and dirty ethnography [13] - tends to involve several days of continuous fieldworker presence within the workplace, a degree of intrusion likely to be considered at best undesirable and at worst wholly unacceptable if replicated within a domestic environment. (O’Brian and Rodden 1997, p. 252) • Sensitivity for intrusion • Importance of privacy • Three approaches • Ethnographic studies • Lab houses • Participatory approaches

5. 1. Ethnographic studies in homes • Relatively few examples • Lull (1991), research assistants lodged in the host households • O’Brian and Rodden (1997) focus on interactive system designs for domestic environments • Rouncefield et al. (2000) wanted to create general design principles and writes: • The explicit aim of the studies was to develop an understanding of the detailed everyday activities in the home with the emphasis placed upon the provision of a 'thick description' of daily life within the home • Often light versions of ethnography (e.g. O’Brian and Rodden 1997) • Our intention in the studies undertaken for this project was, of course, to remain as faithful as possible to the fundamental principles of ethnographic research… (p. 252) • A fieldworker conducted series of three evening visits a week to ten families

6. 1. Ethnographic studies in homes • Blythe and Monk (2002) studied domestic technology • Focus on gender division of domestic labor and gendered product design • Studied three households • In-depth interviews with seven family members • Used the Technology Biography for generating critical and creative responses to questions of home technology development • TB included: • a technology tour of participants homes • last times questions about participants latest technology usage • a personal history interview of participants technologies and routines • a guided speculation on possible future technologies, and • three wishes for products that participants would like to see.

7. 2. Lab houses (awarehome.gatech.edu) • The Aware Home Research Initiative (AHRI) • Focus on: • Health and Well-being • Digital Media and Entertainment • Sustainability • Ambition: investigating how new technologies can impact the lives of people at home • Two identical floors, featuring: a kitchen, dining room, living room, 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, and a laundry room

8. Lab houses, continued • The lab house serves the needs of the researchers in many ways, such as: • for research projects where elements of the home are not easily recreated in the lab • as a place for testing out installation of research projects in a home setting prior to deploying to research participant homes • as a controlled home environment for studies, where technology is not yet ready for installation in participants homes and a home environment would make the difference. • to educate students and provide an interesting environment for their class project ideas • as a single location to share our multi-disciplinary research with others • as an informal location for gathering with a group.

9. 3. Participatory approaches • Involves the user in the process, outside their homes • PD includes all stakeholders in the design process • Captures the cultural, emotional, spiritual and practical needs of users • Interaction techniques developed through user-participation enable household members – rather than designers – to configure and reconfigure interactive devices and services to meet local needs (Rodden et al. 2004, p. 71) • Origin in Scandinavia (1970) • Political dimension, user empowerment and democratisation • Degree of participation varies, the US and European school

10. The two papers • Between the dazzle… (Rodden et al. 2004) • Want to helpusers to manage the introduction and arrangement of new interactive services and devices in the home • LINC-ing the Family… (Neustaedter and Brush, 2006) • Want to helpfamilies in coordinatingeveryday life • Focus on technological support for familycoordination • Both are influenced by participatory design • Bothtargets the domesticuse of IT

11. The procedure: Between the Dazzle • Consulting previous ethnographic studies • People continuously exploit and reconfigure Space-plan and Stuff • Ecological character of domestic technology use • Placement, technology is situated at functional sites • Assembly, technologies are interlinked

12. The procedure: Between the Dazzle • The Component model: • A physical jigsaw editor • Devices can be combined in different ways by users • Familiar, easy, not loaded with existing interpretations • Construction of arrangements • Hard to design upon

13. The procedure: Between the Dazzle • Aims: evaluate the jigsaw-approach, capturewhatdevicesmightfitintohomes and how • 6 Paper-basedmock-upevaluations with 8 participants • Severaljigsawpiecesmadeavailable and combined • Video recording and analysis • Reflections • Userstake an active part in the design • Userswant to interleaveold and new technology • Homes are interleaved with outeractivities • The importance of usinglow-fidelityprototypes • The benefits of groundingcurrent research in previous

14. LINC, Inkable Digital Family Calendar • Focus on familycoordination • Develop the LINC calender • Background: • Family life involves myriads of activities • Activitiesextendsbeyond the home • Activities must be coordinated, or else… • Shortcomings of existingcalendars: • Paper calendarsaren’tavailableoutside of home and are not easilysynchronized • Existing digital calendersexcludesfamilycoordination

15. Ambition • Design a calender that match existingdomesticroutines • Unite the flexibility of papercalenders with the ability to make it digital in a later step

16. Development of LINC • Outline design principlesbased on previous work, a familycalender: • Should be designed as a simple awarenessappliance • Must be flexible in order to support a variety of domesticroutines • Should provide tools for coordination • Should support contextuallocations

17. Participatory design process • Selection of respondents • Searched for a diverse group • Age 31-45 (11), 46-60 (9) etc. • No secondaryuserswereinvolved • Low-fidelityprototyping design sessions • Interviews on currentcalenderuse with 10 users • Performing a series of coordination and awareness tasks • A researcher acted as computer • Video recording and notetaking • Concluded by discussion and recommendedchanges • Refining the design • Medium-fidelityprototyping design sessions • Same procedure as above, but different prototype

18. Key findings of current use • Variouscalendertypeswereused, often in combination • Calenders are placed in high trafficlocations • Calendersonlyleavetheirlocation in case of substantialplanning • People check theircalendersonce or twice a day • Participantswere possessive of ”their” calenders • What is scheduleddiffer, recurrent posts, start and endtimes, location, names or initials, colouruse • Events sometimes come in throughemail, requiring ”copy and paste” • Separate sheets of paper, stickynotes

19. Paper prototype

20. Digital prototype

21. Concluding remarks • It is important to studydomesticuse of IT • Increasinglyimportant • It is howeverdifficult • People might not wantusthere • Three approaches for studying IT at home • Ethnography • Labhouses • Participatoryapproaches • The papers and participatory design • Questions? Comments?