Tatiana Aleksandrovna Lashina

How probes inform and influence the design process

Design and research practitioners have applied probes in their design processes to find new ways of understanding user experience, allowing them to obtain a better understanding of their users and to inspire their designs. Usually in design practice and research, project leaders and managers expect an ultimate solution emerging as a result of probing. However, in most cases such a direct connection is not evident as probes inform and influence the design process in many different ways. We provide illustrative examples of these ways based on a study related to bathroom use for a lighting system. We present a generalization of our findings on how probes can help inform other design processes.

The context aware personal remote control: a case study on context awareness

Modern mobile devices generate a lot of frustration because they cry out for our attention, however, incapable of doing it in the socially acceptable way. The major reason for such handicapped behaviour is that these devices are blind and deaf to the instant situation of the user. To improve this situation research in context awareness targets at making intelligent systems and devices sensitive to the context of use so that they can adapt their behaviour dependent on the context cues such as identity of the user, state of the environment and application status. In this paper we describe our research on context awareness applied to a Personal Remote Control (PRC). The PRC presents TV program reminders and suggestions in an adaptive way dependent on the situation of use. By using sensor based context awareness we strived to make the PRC behaviour appropriate to the situation and to prevent missing a program reminder due to communication failure.

How Not to Become a Buffoon in Front of a Shop Window: A Solution Allowing Natural Head Movement for Interaction with a Public Display

The user interaction solution described in this paper was developed in the context of an Intelligent Shop Window (ISW) with an aim to offer a user the interaction solution where system response would be triggered by naturally gazing at products. We have analyzed a possibility to realize such a user interaction solution using gaze tracking and concluded that remote calibration free eye tracking is still a subject of academic research, but that head tracking could be used instead. We argue that conventional use of head tracking requires conscious intentional head movements and thus does not fit into the context of applications such as the ISW. We further describe our experiment aimed to explore how head movements relate to eye movements when looking at objects in a shop window context. We show large variability in head movement and that per individual the gaze-head data could well be approximated with a straight line. Based on these results we propose a new solution that enables natural gaze interaction by means of head tracking.

Reducing Complexity of Interaction with Advanced Bathroom Lighting at Home (Reduktion der Interaktionskomplexität bei hochentwickelten Badezimmerbeleuchtungssystemen für die Heimanwendung)

Summary Developments in lighting technology provide a wide range of new opportunities for domestic use which have been demonstrated in several interior design projects. At the same time, available user interfaces providing full control over these systems are too cumbersome to use and are not acceptable for the majority of consumers. To reduce this complexity, we aimed at creating an intuitive user interface control for advanced multi-source lighting systems. Based on participatory design techniques, we invited end-users to help us design and evaluate the new interaction concept. In the final evaluation the user interface design was rated highly with regard to its perceived usefulness and “ease of use”. New designs for ad-vanced lighting systems should aim at user-friendly interfaces that make the transition from ordinary light switches to these new interfaces as simple and natural as possible.

From Imagination to Experience: The Role of Feasibility Studies in Gathering Requirements for Ambient Intelligent Products

From a User-Centered Design perspective, technology pushes are often regarded to as negative because the ideas behind these pushes not always address user needs, often causing products to fail in the market. Feasibility studies help close the gap between technology pushes and demand pulls. By inviting users to witness feasibility studies in an early stage of a design process, participants not only are able to provide input long before full functionality has been developed, but it also allows them to make that important step from imagining what an Ambient Intelligent product can do for them in their daily lives, to actually experiencing it.