Timo Tuomisto

Bridging the physical and virtual worlds by local connectivity-based physical selection

The prevalent visions of ambient intelligence emphasise natural interaction between user and functions and services embedded in the environment or available through mobile devices. In these scenarios the physical and virtual worlds seamlessly gear into each other, making crossing the border between these worlds natural or even invisible to the user. The bottleneck in reaching these scenarios appear in the natural mapping between the physical objects and their virtual counterparts. The emergence of local connectivity in mobile devices opens possibilities for implementing novel user interface paradigms to enhance this mapping. We present physical selection paradigm for implementing an intuitive human technology interaction for mobile devices. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the paradigm we implemented two experimental set-ups using commercially available smart phones with IrDA connectivity. The experiments involved selecting a website by physically pointing at its symbol and making a phone call by pointing at an icon representing the person to be called. In tentative user experiments the physical selection method was more time-efficient and it was perceived more positively by the users than a conventional method.

Evaluating touching and pointing with a mobile terminal for physical browsing

Physical browsing is a user interaction paradigm in which the user interacts with physical objects by using a mobile terminal to select the object for some action. The objects contain links to digital services and information related to the objects. The links are implemented with tags that are readable by the mobile terminal. We have built a system that supports selecting objects for interaction by touching and pointing at them. Our physical browsing system emulates passive sensor-equipped long-range RFID tags and a mobile terminal equipped with an RFID reader. We have compared different system configurations for touching and pointing. Additionally, we have evaluated other parameters of physical selection, such as conditions for choice of selection method. In our evaluation of the system, we found touching and pointing to be useful and complementary methods for selecting an object for interaction.

Users’ Preferences for Ubiquitous Computing Applications at Home

We developed and evaluated a home network and ambient intelligence prototype for wellness management and home automation applications. The evaluation was based on interviews and a user trial at a simulated home environment. This paper describes users’ attitudes towards ubiquitous computing technology at home, and especially what kind of applications they would prefer to use at home. We also aimed to gather qualitative information about what kind of user interfaces would be desired for using these applications. The study generated new ideas to develop the ubiquitous computing enabled home concept further.

Ubimedia based on readable and writable memory tags

Ubimedia is a concept where media files are embedded in everyday objects and the environment. We propose an approach where the user can read and write these files with his/her personal mobile phone simply by touching the physical objects. This facilitates easy access and storage of, e.g. video and audio files related to the physical object in question. This paper describes our work in developing a technical solution for ubimedia and studying user acceptance of forthcoming ubimedia services. Our technical development of the ubimedia concept has been focused on a mobile phone platform with a tag reader/writer, memory tags with large storage capacity, and the communication between the phone and the tags. Currently, the technical design is in test and evaluation phase. The preliminary results show that the concept works and it can be implemented technically. In parallel with the technical development, we have studied usage possibilities for ubimedia and user acceptance of future ubimedia services. User acceptance has been studied in a web survey and in user evaluations of proofs-of-concept. In addition, an ethical assessment has been carried out. The users appreciated especially the simplicity, speed, low cost and reliability of ubimedia. Ethical concerns were related to control over the download with regard to viruses and other unwanted content.

Identifying User Requirements for a Mobile Terminal Centric Ubiquitous Computing Architecture

System level solutions affect many properties of ubiquitous applications and thus also user experience. That is why user point of view should guide the design of mobile architectures although the users will see them indirectly, via the applications. This paper describes our approach in identifying user requirements for a ubiquitous computing architecture that facilitates mobile applications sensing their environment. The sensing is based on wireless connectivity to tags and sensors in the environment. We illustrated a representative set of future applications as scenarios and proof of concepts and evaluated them with potential users. Scenarios were analyzed to identify generic use cases and to understand the implications of the user feedback on the architecture. Our experiences show that user requirements for system level solutions can be identified with this approach. We identified several requirements for the architecture dealing with user interaction, wireless measurements, context-awareness, taking applications into use and ethical issues

Ambient functionality: use cases

In this paper we describe use cases and user requirements for ambient intelligence applications on personal mobile devices. Wireless connections to tags and sensors provide mobile applications with different identification, measurement and context data. Mobile applications that utilise local connectivity share many common patterns. We have identified these common patterns and describe them as use cases related to physical selection, activating applications, sensing and context-awareness. Based on user and expert evaluations of usage scenarios we also present user requirements for the use cases.

Ubimedia based on memory tags

Ubimedia is a concept where media files can be embedded in everyday objects and the environment. The user can access those files with his/her personal mobile phone simply by touching the physical objects. This facilitates easy access e.g. to video or audio files related to the physical object in question. In parallel with the technical development of the mobile phone platform and the memory tags that will facilitate ubimedia in practice, we have studied possible usages for ubimedia and user acceptance of those usages. User acceptance has been studied in a web survey and in user evaluations of a proof-of-concept. In addition, an ethical assessment has been carried out. The users appreciated especially the simplicity, speed, low cost and reliability of ubimedia. Concerns were related to control over the download with regard to viruses and other unwanted content.

Designing smart living for ageing Alice – and the persons next door

ABSTRACT This article presents the co-design and development process for a home control system in the context of a healthcare ecology for older people accessing care home services. The contribution of this article is threefold: (1) it presents a design-oriented, user-centred approach for studying intelligent environments (IE); (2) it describes an ontology-based architecture that provides the foundation for the system, and (3) it introduces a proof-of-concept tool for creating and customizing IE services. The article dedicates the system to ‘Alice’, a central persona created for the initial research scenarios, representing a new arrival at a residential care home. This article illustrates the multifaceted design process and considers the challenges of linking Alices ‘intelligent apartment’ to all the other apartments next to, and beyond, hers.

Physical Browsing and Selection—Easy Interaction with Ambient Services

Publisher Summary Physical browsing is an interaction paradigm that associates digital information with physical objects. It can be regarded as analogous to browsing the Web—the physical environment contains links to digital information; by selecting them, various services can be activated. Physical browsing is based on selecting a physical world target with a mobile terminal—for example, a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with a mobile phone equipped with a suitable reader device. Selection causes information related to the target to be displayed on the mobile terminal, some service related to the target object to be “activated,” or the mobile terminal to be connected to another device in the ambient intelligence environment. Interaction with services embedded in the physical environment first requires their discovery. Users must perceive the availability, purpose, capabilities, and way of use of these affordances, whose subsequent use involves a number of selection tasks to indicate, for example, objects of interest, choices, targets for interaction, and sources of information. While in the familiar desktop environment a series of pointing, clicking, and dragging actions manipulate objects on the screen; similar interaction techniques can now be developed for physical browsing and manipulating data associated with the physical objects. Because of the diverse nature of the physical world, there is a large variety of solutions for implementing these browsing and selection tasks and associated interaction paradigms.

Creating Scenes for an Intelligent Nursing Environment: Co-design and User Evaluations of a Home Control System

In this paper we describe the co-design process of a proof-of-concept home control system, and how it was carried out by utilising a user-centred design methodology. The aim was to develop a demonstrator of a home control system that supports elderly people in living more independently in their homes. The focus of the research was on the configuration tool of the environment, which was meant to be exploited in a nursing home. The home control system was intended to be used and configured by non-technologically versed users: mainly the care personnel, but also the inhabitants and their close relatives. The system was co-designed and evaluated at first with nurses, who were considered to be the local experts of the chosen ecosystem. The final web-based proof-of-concept system was evaluated with nurses and end-users.