Jan Humble

“Playing with the Bits” User-Configuration of Ubiquitous Domestic Environments

This paper presents the development of a user-oriented framework to support the user reconfiguration of ubiquitous domestic environments. We present a lightweight component model that allows a range of devices to be readily interconnected and an editor to support users in doing this. The editor discovers available ubiquitous components and presents these to users as jigsaw pieces that can be dynamically recombined. The developed editor allows users to assemble lightweight sensors, devices such as displays and larger applications in order to meet their particular needs.

The error of our ways: The experience of self-reported position in a location-based game

We present a study of people’s use of positional information as part of a collaborative location-based game. The game exploits self-reported positioning in which mobile players manually reveal their positions to remote players by manipulating electronic maps. Analysis of players’ movements, position reports and communications, drawing on video data, system logs and player feedback, highlights some of the ways in which humans generate, communicate and interpret position reports. It appears that remote participants are largely untroubled by the relatively high positional error associated with self reports. Our analysis suggests that this may because mobile players declare themselves to be in plausible locations such as at common landmarks, ahead of themselves on their current trajectory (stating their intent) or behind themselves (confirming previously visited locations). These observations raise new requirements for the future development of automated positioning systems and also suggest that self-reported positioning may be a useful fallback when automated systems are unavailable or too unreliable.

Threshold devices: looking out from the home

Threshold devices present information gathered from the homes surroundings to give new views on the domestic situation. We built two prototypes of different threshold devices and studied them in field trials with participant households. The Local Barometer displays online text and images related to the homes locality depending on the local wind conditions to give an impression of the sociocultural surroundings. The Plane Tracker tracks aircraft passing overhead and imagines their flights onscreen to resource an understanding of the homes global links. Our studies indicated that the experiences they provided were compelling, that participants could and did interpret the devices in various ways, that their form designs were appropriate for domestic environments, that using ready-made information contributed to the richness of the experiences, and that situating the information they provided with respect to the home and its locality was important for the ways people engaged with them.

Information exploration using The Pond

In this paper we describe The Pond, a system used to search for and visualise data elements on an engaging tabletop display. The Pond uses methods of unencumbered interaction and audio feedback to allow users to investigate data elements, and supports shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration with the physical Pond artefact mediating the collaboration between those people gathered around it. The user interface is based on an ecosystem metaphor, presenting data elements in the form of shoals of aquatic creatures inside a virtual 3D pond. The Pond is an interactive system offering an appealing and novel way to search for and interchange information. We describe the motivation and design choices behind The Pond, the system as it stands today, details of its implementation, and observations from a study of The Pond in use.

Digital plumbing: the mundane work of deploying UbiComp in the home

Deploying UbiComp in real homes is central to realizing Weiser’s grand vision of ‘invisible’ computing. It is essential to moving design out of the lab and making it into an unremarkable feature of everyday life. Deployment can be problematic, however, and in ways that a number of researchers have already pointed to. In this paper, we wish to complement the community’s growing understanding of challenges to deployment. We focus on ‘digital plumbing’—i.e., the mundane work involved in installing ubiquitous computing in real homes. Digital plumbing characterizes the act of deployment. It draws attention to the work of installation: to the collaborative effort of co-situating prototypical technologies in real homes, to the competences involved, the practical troubles encountered, and the demands that real world settings place on the enterprise. We provide an ethnographic study of the work. It makes visible the unavoidable need for UbiComp researchers to develop new technologies with respect to existing technological arrangements in the home and to develop methods and tools that support the digital plumber in planning and preparing for change, in managing the contingencies that inevitably occur in realizing change, and in coordinating digital plumbing and maintaining awareness of change.

Modular sensor architecture for unobtrusive routine clinical diagnosis

Clinical diagnosis of pathological conditions is accomplished regularly via the recording and subsequent analysis of a physiological variable from a subject. Problems with current common practice centre around the obtrusive and rigid nature of this process. These include the length, timing and location of the diagnostic recording session, transfer of data to clinical staff, liaison between clinical staff and subjects and the integration of such diagnostic check-ups into the overall health care process. We have designed a modular diagnostic monitor that is centered around a wearable computer system which, when integrated into a suitable computer network and database architecture, is capable of addressing the above problems. The system is modular, allowing researchers and practitioners to utilise various sensor modules, reconfigure the unit in terms of its on-board storage and wireless telemetry capabilities, select the appropriate level of data preprocessing (before archiving data) and choose the appropriate level and nature of feedback to the subject. The system is GRID enabled, supporting e-clinical-trials. GRID clients can display live data, historical data, or perform data mining.

A generic architecture for sensor data integration with the grid

This paper describes the design and implementation of a model of how to integrate sensors and devices into a Grid infrastructure. We describe its proxy-based approach, the port-type requirements and the set of tools implemented to facilitate configuration of experimental scenarios. Two real world devices, a wearable medical jacket and an Antarctic lake probe, deployed out in the field using this architecture are described, along with their relevance in scientific research.

Combining System Introspection with User-Provided Description to Support Configuration and Understanding of Pervasive systems

Pervasive computing systems such as smart spaces typically combine multiple embedded and/or mobile sensing, computing and interaction devices. A variety of distributed computing approaches are used to integrate these devices to support coordinated applications. This paper describes how simple user descriptions of (primarily) physical aspects of such a system can be combined with information from system introspection to make the system and its log recordings more understandable to potential users, as well as supporting easier configuration and monitoring, and allowing the expression of certain kinds of system behaviour that are otherwise hard to achieve.

Assembling connected cooperative residential domains

Between the dazzle of a new building and its eventual corpse ...[lies the] unappreciated, undocumented, awkward-seeming time when it was alive to evolution ...those are the best years, the time when the building can engage us at our own level of complexity.

Supporting the design of network-spanning applications

In this case study, we describe our use of ECT, a tool intended to simplify the design and development of network-spanning applications. We have used ECT throughout the course of a two-year collaboration, which has involved individuals with expertise in a variety of fields, including interaction design and computer systems engineering. We describe our experiences with this tool, with a particular focus on its emerging role in helping us to structure our collaboration. We conclude by presenting lessons that we have learned, and by suggesting future directions for the development of tools to support the design of network-spanning applications.