Julia van Heek

Safety and Privacy Perceptions in Public Spaces: An Empirical Study on User Requirements for City Mobility

Mobility represents an essential prerequisite for the participation in social lives in urban environments. However, seamless mobility and traveling is based on dwellers’ perception of a high personal safety at different urban locations. Safety can be supported by adequate surveillance technologies (e.g., cameras), but any surveillance undermines individual wishes for protection of privacy. In this empirical study, we explore users’ perceptions on safety and privacy. Using an online survey, 99 users were requested to indicate their acceptance of different types of technologies that increase safety, differentiating perceived benefits and barriers. Also, we explored acceptance differences towards surveillance technologies during day- and nighttime at various locations (private and public). Finally, we determined the trade-off between the wish for increasing safety and the wish for privacy.

Helpful but Spooky? Acceptance of AAL-systems Contrasting User Groups with Focus on Disabilities and Care Needs

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies present one approach facing the challenges of recent and rising care needs due to demographic changes in western societies. Beside the technological implementation, the focus on user acceptance of all stakeholders plays a major role for a successful rollout. As most research deals with age-related issues, this paper emphasizes especially on the sector of disabled persons. In a qualitative interview pre-study (n=9) and a validating questionnaire study (n=279) the perceived benefits and barriers of AAL technologies were contrasted in four user groups: healthy “not-experienced” people, disabled, their relatives, and professional care givers. Results indicate that disabled and care-needy people show a higher acceptance and intention to use an AAL system than “not-experienced” people or care givers and that the motives for use and non-use differ strongly with regard to user diversity as well. The results show the importance to integrate diverse user groups (age, disabilities) into the design and evaluation process of AAL technologies.

Intentions to Use Smart Textiles in AAL Home Environments: Comparing Younger and Older Adults

The vision of ubiquitous computing is increasingly picking up pace. An increasing number of everyday objects are equipped with smart technology and start to form the Internet of Things. Yet, interacting with these devices is based on conventional surfaces made of glass, metal, or plastic. We believe that textile interaction surfaces will be the next frontier of ubiquitous computing and identified many blank spots in the research landscape. Peoples’ perception and acceptance of smooth and soft interaction surfaces is insufficiently understood. In this paper we present a study in which 90 people of a wide age range evaluated the suitability of smart textiles in different usage scenarios in the home environment. Overall, a solid willingness to use smart textiles as input devices was found, even though there were conditional acceptance criteria which should be given before participants would be willing to buy them. In contrast to many other technology contexts, however, age is not decisive in the evaluation of the usefulness of smart textiles. Younger and older adults seem to have a quite similar evaluation, hinting at a quite generic acceptance pattern.

Age, Gender, and Technology Attitude as Factors for Acceptance of Smart Interactive Textiles in Home Environments - Towards a Smart Textile Technology Acceptance Model

Smart interactive textiles are the next frontier of ubiquitous computing and may serve as novel and accepted interfaces that go beyond conventional human-computer interaction. Apart from the technical perspective, it is important to understand if and under which conditions people adopt these technologies and which factors constitute perceived barriers of technology acceptance. In this work we examine people’s attitudes towards smart textiles and their relationship to the intention to use these products in their home environment. This article provides a precise modeling of younger and older people in regard to expertise in interacting with technology, their desire to control and automate functions in their home environment, and the evaluation of a smart cushion for controlling the home environment, using the Smart Textile Technology Acceptance Model that is derived from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 model. This model was applied for a specific smart textile product and the evaluation was focused on user-diversity, attitudes, and age. The article concludes with open research questions and guidelines for practitioners to leverage the benefits of smart textile user interfaces.

Towards Accepted Smart Interactive Textiles : The Interdisciplinary Project INTUITEX

Smart Interactive Textiles combine the warmth and omnipresence of textiles in our everyday lives with the benefits of modern information and communication technologies. The potential of innovation is not only based on technical ingenuity, but also on the consideration and embedding of peoples’ fears, requirements, desires, and wishes regarding these innovative technologies. Thus, the development of smart interactive textiles requires the expertise of various disciplines. Foremost, appropriate conductive yarns must be selected and integrated into conventional fabrics. Sensors and actuators must be embedded in textiles in a way that they could be used as a user interface. The design of these textiles should meet human needs and should enable an intuitive, easy to learn, and effective interaction. To meet these requirements, potential users should be part of the development and evaluation processes of innovative smart textiles. In this article, we present a research framework that integrates several interdisciplinary perspectives (interface design, textile technology, integration and automation, communication and human factors). We realized three functional smart textile demonstrators (curtain, chair, jacket). We report on the results of this interdisciplinary research project as well as the research questions and key findings of the individual partners. In summary, this article demonstrates that interdisciplinary cooperation, user-centered and participatory design, and iterative product development are necessary for successful innovative technologies.

Where, Wherefore, and How? - Contrasting Two Surveillance Contexts According to Acceptance

Surveillance technologies are used all over the world for various reasons. In urban environments, surveillance technologies are predominantly used for detecting or preventing crimes. Simultaneously, an increasing number of technologies are used for medical monitoring at home, but also at clinical facilities, and at public environments for assuring patients’ medical safety. An intensive policy discussion about perceived advantages (especially increasing safety) and perceived barriers (in particular the invasion of privacy) comes along with the use of surveillance technologies. In this paper, it is examined where and for which contexts the use of surveillance technologies is accepted and under which conditions safety or privacy is perceived as more important. We investigate the acceptance of surveillance technologies for medical and crime surveillance scenarios using a conjoint analysis approach including four relevant aspects: location of surveillance, increase in safety, invasion of privacy, and the applied camera type. Results show both, context independent findings as well as context-sensitive findings: e.g., for crime surveillance, the location is most important followed by the trade-off between privacy and safety, while these three factors are of similar importance for medical surveillance. From a practical viewpoint, the findings might contribute to a differentiated surveillance policy in cities.

Privacy, Data Security, and the Acceptance of AAL-Systems – A User-Specific Perspective

Rising care needs, higher proportions of older, diseased, or disabled people, and an increasing deficiency of qualified care staff due to demographic changes are major challenges in western societies. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies represent one approach to face these challenges. Besides technological developments and implementations, focusing on user acceptance (including diverse stakeholder perspectives) is important for a successful rollout. As the most previous studies focus on age-related issues, this paper emphasizes especially on people with care needs due to a disability. In particular the acceptance of an AAL system is investigated considering the trade-off between perceived benefits (e.g., increasing autonomy) and perceived barriers (e.g., invasion in privacy, to “abandon” data security). Using a quantitative online questionnaire, decisive use conditions are identified, and the trade-offs and AAL-acceptance are evaluated comparing four user groups: “healthy people” without experiences with disabilities, disabled people, family members, and professional care givers. Results indicate that experience with disabilities influence the acceptance and relevant use conditions of AAL systems as well as the trade-offs between benefits and barriers. The results demonstrate the relevance to include diverse user groups (age, diseases, disabilities) and their specific needs and wishes into the design and evaluation process of AAL technologies.

A Game of Wants and Needs - The Playful, User-centered Assessment of AAL Technology Acceptance

The use of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies presents one option to face the challenges of recent and rising care needs due to demographic change. User acceptance of those technologies plays a major role for a successful rollout and sustainable technology usage. Empirical research approaches (e.g., online questionnaires) in this area are often impersonal and abstract for the participants. In contrast, the current study aimed for a playful qualitative user study approach in which people empathize with different necessities of support and evaluate desired technologies and respective usage motives as well as barriers. The paper presents first research results of the new undertaken research approach, which was tested with six older participants (aged between 50 and 81 years of age). The results show that the playful approach enables a personal assessment of different assistive technologies and technology-related usage motives and barriers when a prototype testing is not feasible.

Interactive FUrniTURE: Evaluation of Smart Interactive Textile Interfaces for Home Environments

Ubiquitous computing strives to reach the calm computing state where sensors and actuators disappear from the foreground of our surroundings into the fabric of everyday objects. Despite the great progress in embedded technology, artificial interfaces, such as remote controls and touch screens, remain the dominant media for interacting with smart everyday objects. Motivated by recent advancements in smart textile technologies, we investigate the usability and acceptance of fabric-based controllers in the smart home environment. In this article we describe the development and evaluation of three textile interfaces for controlling a motorized recliner armchair in a living room setting. The core of this contribution is the empirical study with twenty participants that contrasted the user experience of three textile-based interaction techniques to a standard remote control. Despite the slightly lower reliability of the textile interfaces, their overall acceptance was higher. The study shows that the hedonic quality and attractiveness of textile interfaces have higher impact on user acceptance compared to pragmatic qualities, such as efficiency, fluidity of interaction, and reliability. Attractiveness profits from the direct and nearly invisible integration of the interaction device into textile objects such as furniture.

The Surveillance Society: Which Factors Form Public Acceptance of Surveillance Technologies?

Currently, surveillance technologies are increasingly used to give people a sense of safety in medical as well as crime surveillance contexts. On the one hand, perceived safety can be supported by adequate surveillance technologies (e.g., cameras), however, the systematic use of surveillance technologies undermines individual privacy needs on the other hand. In this empirical study, we explore users’ perceptions on safety and privacy in the context of surveillance systems. In order to understand if the acceptance of surveillance depends on usage contexts, surveillance technologies in the urban were compared to the medical context. Using an online survey, 119 users were requested to indicate their acceptance regarding different types of surveillance contexts and technologies, differentiating perceived benefits and barriers as well as safety and privacy needs. We investigate acceptance differences towards surveillance technologies at various locations (private and public) as well. In this paper, we especially explore the impact of different surveillance contexts, locations and individual perceived crime threat on the acceptance of surveillance technologies and on the needs for privacy and safety.