Francesco Gianni

Tiles: A Card-based Ideation Toolkit for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) offers new opportunities to invent technology-augmented things that are more useful, efficient or playful than their ordinary selves, yet only a few tools currently support ideation for the IoT. In this paper we present Tiles Cards, a set of 110 design cards and a workshop technique to involve non-experts in quick idea generation for augmented objects. Our tool aims to support exploring combinations of user interface metaphors, digital services, and physical objects. Then it supports creative thinking through provocative design goals inspired by human values and desires. Finally, it provides critical lenses through which analyze and judge design outcomes. We evaluated our tool in 9 ideation workshops with a total of 32 participants. Results show that the tool was useful in informing and guiding idea generation and was perceived as appealing and fun. Drawing on observations and participant feedbacks, we reflect on the strengths and limitations of this tool.

Tiles: An Inventor Toolkit for Interactive Objects

We present the groundwork for Tiles: an inventor toolbox to support the development of interactive objects by non-experts. Tiles is composed by (i) a set of physical input/output primitives to describe interaction styles with technology-augmented objects, (ii) extensible hardware modules easily embeddable in everyday things that implement the primitives, (iii) APIs to code application logics using popular programming languages. We are currently exploring the opportunities of using Tiles to develop applications for learning, games and advanced visual interfaces.

Designing for Sustainable Urban Mobility Behaviour: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Urban mobility is a challenge in cities undergoing growing urbanisation, requiring a shift in behaviour towards more sustainable means of transportation. To investigate how technology can mediate the process of behaviour change, particularly in the context of smart cities, this paper presents a systematic literature review. Three areas are of interest: the utilised technology, behaviour change strategies, and citizen participation in the development process. A total of 14 different applications were included in the final review. The findings show that mobile devices are being prevalently used, persuasive strategies are foremost mentioned, and end-user involvement is happening late in the development process, serving primarily testing purposes. This points out that there are still various unexplored possibilities. It is suggested that future research should explore opportunities stemming from ubiquitous technology, employ behaviour change strategies grounded in reflective learning, and promote citizen involvement with participatory methods.

RapIoT Toolkit: Rapid Prototyping of Collaborative Internet of Things Applications

The Internet of Things holds huge promises to enhance collaboration in multiple application domains. By bringing Internet connectivity to everyday objects and environments it promotes ubiquitous access to information and integration with third-party systems. Further, connected things can be used as physical interfaces to enable users to cooperate leveraging multiple devices via parallel and distributed actions. Yet creating prototypes of IoT systems is a complex task for non-experts because it requires dealing with multi-layered hardware and software infrastructures. We introduce RapIoT, a software toolkit that facilitates prototyping IoT systems providing an integrated set of developer tools. Our solution abstracts low-level details and communication protocols allowing developers to focus on the application logic, facilitating rapid prototyping. RapIoT supports the development of collaborative applications by enabling the definition of high-level data types primitives. RapIoT primitives act as a loosely-coupled interface between generic IoT devices and applications; simplifying the development of systems that make use of an ecology of devices distributed to multiple users and environments. We illustrate the potential of our toolkit by presenting the development process of a IoT system for crowd-sourcing of air quality data. We conclude discussing strength and limitations of our platform highlighting further possible uses for collaborative applications.

Rapid Prototyping Internet of Things Applications for Augmented Objects: The Tiles Toolkit Approach

Designing and prototyping for IoT have historically required a diverse range of skills and a set of tools that individually supported only a fraction of the whole process, not being designed to work together. These tools usually require a certain level of proficiency in design methods, programming or electronics, depending on the phase addressed. Previous works on the Tiles Ideation toolkit and the RapIoT software framework demonstrated how the design phase can be democratized and how a simple programming paradigm can make coding for IoT a task accessible to non-experts. With this work we present and evaluate the process and the technologies involved in the programming and prototyping phase of an IoT application. The Tiles Square and the Tiles Temp are introduced, these two electronic devices complement and support IoT prototyping. They are designed to work in conjunction with the Tiles Ideation toolkit and are supported by the RapIoT software framework, allowing non-experts to augment and program everyday objects. We illustrate the potential of this approach by presenting the results obtained after workshops with 44 students. We conclude by discussing strengths and limitations of our approach, highlighting the lessons learned and possible improvements.

Tiles-Reflection: Designing for Reflective Learning and Change Behaviour in the Smart City

Modern cities are increasing in geographical size, population and number. While this development ascribes cities an important function, it also entails various challenges. Efficient urban mobility, energy saving, waste reduction and increased citizen participation in public life are some of the pressing challenges recognized by the United Nations. Retaining livable cities necessitates a change in behaviour in the citizens, promoting sustainability and seeking an increase in the quality of life. Technology possesses the capabilities of mediating behaviour change. A review of existing works highlighted a rather unilateral utilization of technology, mostly consisting of mobile devices, employment of persuasive strategies for guiding behaviour change, and late end-user involvement in the design of the application, primarily for testing purposes. These findings leave the door open to unexplored research approaches, including opportunities stemming from the Internet of Things, reflective learning as behaviour change strategy, and active involvement of end-users in the design and development process. We present Tiles-Reflection, an extension of the Tiles toolkit, a card-based ideation toolkit for the Internet of Things. The extension comprises components for reflective learning, allowing thus non-expert end-users to co-create behaviour change applications. The results of the evaluation suggest that the tool was perceived as useful by participants, fostering reflection on different aspects connected to societal challenges in the smart city. Furthermore, application ideas developed by the users successfully implemented the reflective learning model adopted.

Game-Based Learning for IoT: The Tiles Inventor Toolkit

This paper presents a Game-Based Learning Design Pattern for designing Internet of Things (IoT) applications, as well as an instance of this particular pattern, namely the ‘Tiles inventor game’. This educational game has been validated in various educational contexts aiming to understand IoT fundamentals. Due to lack of topics on IoT in the STEM curricula today as well as due to the lack of game-based learning design patterns, we propose these two artifacts, the pattern of designing IoT applications and the description of the Tiles inventor game, as a means of communicating best practice and contributing to bridging the gap between educational theory and informal practice in such a niche domain.

DELTA: Promoting Young People Participation in Urban Planning

Today urban areas are growing fast, in this process it remains a challenge to include the opinions of the public. This holds especially true for young people. From the 1960’s, the rights of the children started to be recognized through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 12 of the convention states that children should have the opportunity to express their views in matters that affect them, like urban planning. Our work started analysing the literature and providing an overview of participatory methods used to include children in land-use projects. We then reviewed existing mobile apps targeting participation in public life. Based on the findings from the literature a list of high level requirements was created to guide the design and implementation of the mobile app DELTA. The DELTA app support situated participation encouraging users to explore the urban environment, promoting awareness and critical thinking. Several user evaluations are performed during the development cycles, including expert evaluations, usability and field tests of the final prototype. Based on collected data and lessons learned, results are discussed in relation to participation and learning outcomes for children.