Designing a Home of the Future - MIT Media Lab
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I N T E G R AT E D E N V I R O N M E N T S
Designing a Home
of the Future
An interdisciplinary team is developing technologies and design strategies
that use context-aware sensing to empower people by presenting information
at precisely the right time and place. The team is designing a living laboratory
to study technology that motivates behavior change in context.
P
eople spend more time in their homes than in no single “home of the future.” In particular, we aim to
any other space. The home ideally provides a create design strategies for more flexible environments that
safe, comfortable environment in which to better meet occupants’ physical and cognitive needs than
relax, communicate, learn, and be enter- current environments. Based on discussions with medical
tained. Increasingly, it is where people con- professionals, patients, educators, and homeowners, we
nect with friends and family, conduct business, manage believe that the home of most value in the future will not
resources, learn about the world, and maintain health and use technology primarily to automatically control the envi-
autonomy as they age. People invest extraordinary ronment but instead will help its occupants learn how to
amounts of time, money, and emotional energy to mold control the environment on their own.
their homes into living spaces that meet their needs. This shift is the focus of this article. As a byproduct of
Unfortunately, homes today are ill-suited to exploiting this shift, new tools are required to study technology in the
the pervasive computing applications being developed in context of home life. To address this need, our team has
laboratories. Most homes do not easily accommodate designed and is planning to construct a “living laboratory”
even the simplest new technologies, that will support qualitative and quantitative studies inves-
Stephen S. Intille let alone embedded sensor infra- tigating the relationships between spaces, the behaviors of
MIT School of Architecture structures and ubiquitous display people, and pervasive computing technologies.
and Planning technologies. Moreover, homeown-
ers generally believe that computer Envisioning homes of the future
devices make life more complex and If we are to believe most movies, television, and pop-
frustrating rather than easier and more relaxing. They are ular press articles that mention home life in the future, we
wary of the aesthetic, financial, and cognitive challenges will have complete control over our spaces at the touch of
of bringing new technologies into their homes. a button. In fact, our homes will be so fully automated
Researchers in the Changing Places/House_n: MIT and “smart” that we will rarely have to think about every-
Home of the Future Consortium (http://architecture. day tasks at all. We will spend nearly all our time in the
mit.edu/house_n) at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- home engaged in leisure activities because digital and
nology are investigating how the home and its related tech- robotic agents will have taken over the mundane chores
nologies, products, and services should evolve to better of day-to-day life.
meet the opportunities and challenges of the future. Our Researchers and technologists are more cautious in pre-
team’s researchers have backgrounds in computer science, dicting the future of the home. A survey of ongoing work
user interface design and usability, architecture, mechani- shows, however, that there is a bias toward creating auto-
cal engineering, psychology, and materials science. The matic (smart) home environments that eliminate the need
“n” in House_n represents a variable; we believe there is to think about tasks such as controlling heating and light-
80 PERVASIVE computing 1536-1268/02/$17.00 © 2002 IEEEing, going to the grocery store, scheduling home mize savings and comfort by automatically con- when making these control decisions. Because
appliances, and cooking.1–3 trolling the HVAC systems, windows, and the system is so complex, the user will be left
Although our team might use automation to blinds. For instance, on a day when the tem- feeling frustrated—helpless to understand the
help people accomplish tasks they cannot per- perature is predicted to shift from warm to cool, behavior. Why does it keep opening the win-
form on their own because of a disability or the home might determine that the optimal dows when, clearly, the user wants and needs
frailty, our primary vision is not one where com- cooling strategy is to shut down the AC and them closed?
puter technology ubiquitously and proactively automatically open a set of blinds and windows
manages the details of the home. Technology so as to create an efficient cross breeze. The home that uses subtle reminders
should require human effort in ways that keep This scenario is relatively simple compared Consider an alternative scenario. In this
life as mentally and physically challenging as with other smart-home visions. In practice, home of the future, the windows include a tiny
possible as people age. We are designing and
building prototypes demonstrating how to cre- Technology should require human effort in ways
ate environments that help people
that keep life as mentally and physically
• Live long and healthy lives in their homes
• Reduce resource consumption challenging as possible as people age.
• Integrate learning into their everyday activ-
ity in the home however, it would be an immense challenge to light that is either embedded in the window
achieve this simple scenario in an actual home frame (for example, a light-emitting diode) or
To accomplish these goals, we envision com- setting. The sophistication of commonsense projected on the window using display tech-
puter technology as ever-present but in a more reasoning and context awareness that is nology (for example, an IBM Everywhere Dis-
subtle way. Information will be presented to required is daunting, given the current state of play6). The home’s embedded sensors and opti-
people at precisely the time and place they need our understanding of these fields. There are mization algorithms compute a strategy for
it. We want our pervasive technologies to many situations in which the automatic system cooling the home by opening a particular set of
empower people with information that helps might succeed in optimizing temperature com- windows, but they do not proactively imple-
them make decisions; we do not want to strip fort yet fail in “doing the right thing”: some- ment the strategy.
people of their sense of control, which has been thing noisy is occurring outside, someone is In this example, imagine that the light on the
shown to be psychologically and physically smoking outside the window, someone in the window subtly illuminates. It does not inter-
debilitating.4 home is allergic to pollen and the pollen count rupt the home occupant. When someone in the
is high, it is raining outside, it is too quiet for a home notices it, he or she knows the light means
Control versus empowerment: person reading when the hum of the air condi- “it might be a good idea to open this window
An example tioner is off, someone did not want the blinds right now.” The home thereby unobtrusively
To illustrate this shift in thinking, imagine open because it throws glare on a computer informs the user of actions that might be taken
that our goal is to create an environment that screen, and so on. No matter how hard the sys- to conserve energy or money. In this way, the
uses pervasive computing technology to save tem designer tries to program contingency plans home teaches the occupant, in an unobtrusive
energy by automatically controlling the heater- for all possible contexts, invariably the system way, how to achieve the optimal settings. The
vent-air conditioning system. We assume that will sometimes frustrate the home occupant home can take a similar approach when the
the environment’s embedded sensors can infer and perform in unexpected and undesirable goal is to improve health or introduce learning
context such as where people are, what they are ways. A learning algorithm would also have into everyday life.
doing, and what the inside environmental con- difficulty because a training set will not con- This scenario has several advantages over
ditions are. We also assume that the home con- tain examples of appropriate decisions for all proactive control:
tains computer-controlled HVAC appliances, possible contextual situations.
windows, and blinds. There is a fundamental problem here: the • Information can be presented that the occu-
more complexity the algorithms consider when pant can react to without interrupting ongo-
The automated home making decisions, the less transparent those ing activity in potentially irritating ways; this
One way to reduce resource consumption is decisions will be to the homeowner.5 The system is especially true if information can be “aug-
to design a home environment that controls will actually become less predictable as it mented” onto the physical environment itself.
environmental conditions. The home’s occu- acquires more expertise, and the system’s suc- • Leaving occupants in control of making deci-
pant informs the system via some type of user cess some or most of the time will raise user sions allows the home to present options
interface that he or she wishes to stay comfort- expectations about what the system is capable based on partial information without con-
able while saving as much energy or money as of doing. Inevitably, the system will violate the fusing them; they will naturally consider con-
possible. The home then uses a set of opti- user’s high expectations given the unexplain- texts that the home has not and adjust their
mization algorithms to simultaneously maxi- able “intelligence” the system sometimes shows actions accordingly.
APRIL–JUNE 2002 PERVASIVE computing 81I N T E G R AT E D E N V I R O N M E N T S
• Algorithms that make suggestions can decides to take an action such as opening the occasionally follow the home’s recommenda-
degrade gracefully; algorithms that make window. This is a “point of behavior” that the tion, they will gradually learn how to efficiently
decisions typically do not. home can easily identify by detecting a specific control the temperature in the environment in
• Lack of control over aspects of life has been event (the opening of the window). The user sophisticated ways. Occupants will understand
shown to diminish health4; this strategy has already decided to stop whatever he or she that lights appear on their windows because it is
empowers the home occupant. was doing to perform a recommended task. cool enough outside to set up a cross breeze.
The home can safely infer directly from sen- They will also gradually learn how to create a
The user ultimately decides whether to open sor data that the user is opening the window cross breeze given the geometry of their house
the window. Therefore, the task of interpreting and therefore is likely to be receptive to infor- and the prevalent wind direction:
the suggestion in context rests with the user: if it mation that helps the user determine how to
is noisy outside, the user will simply decide not do so. The user is also likely to be curious • Using window inlets and outlets that maxi-
to open the window, realizing that this is not a about why the home is making this recom- mize cooling and air flow through the home
good time. This is a pervasive computing appli- mendation. Finally, the user will have moved • Understanding how long it will take for cool-
cation with an exceptionally simple user interface. to the object’s physical location; this presents ing to occur
Could such a system actually influence behav- a good opportunity to teach by overlaying dig- • Recognizing the best times to establish intake
ior? Yes. Controlled studies in homes show that ital information on the physical space. In this air
using such a small, simple light on an AC unit can scenario, precisely when the system determines • Knowing how to use fans to facilitate cross-
lead to 15 percent reductions in AC use.7,8 that the user has decided to act, it can overlay breeze cooling
information on the real world to educate the
The teaching home user about how to create the most effective Most people do not know how to do these things
Pervasive computing can be used not only to cross breeze. because no one is there to teach them when they
motivate behavior but to teach at the moment Even if the user does not have time to stop need guidance at the point of behavior. A perva-
when the behavior is undertaken. Systems that and study information, it is possible to present sive computing system presenting information
automatically make control decisions generally feedback that results in learning. For example, at the point of behavior can fill this need.
miss this opportunity—users can become com- as the window is opened, the system might pro- To measure the impact of point-of-decision
placent if the system functions perfectly. ject information onto the nearby wall that esti- messaging, we are developing prototypes on two
Although a computer system might try to pre- mates the magnitude of the breeze to be created. platforms: “augmented reality” Everywhere Dis-
sent the user with educational messages to The person might notice that, counterintuitively, play technology that can place information
explain the actions it is taking, to do this with- opening the window further does not always directly onto objects in a home6 and portable
out interrupting and irritating the user is a chal- result in a stronger cross breeze. The user’s task computing devices such as PDAs and cell phone
lenge. The system must compute a reasonable has not been interrupted, so even if the user is hybrids. (Based on trends in miniaturization,10
time to present the information. Even for rela- completely uninterested in the information, no within five to 10 years we will likely be able to
tively simple help applications, this has proven attentional disruption has been created. Imme- buy an affordable and stylish wrist computer
that will convey information to us whenever it
Pervasive computing can be used not only to is appropriate.) Either method can easily pre-
sent information at the right place. The chal-
motivate behavior but to teach at the moment lenge then becomes to develop algorithms that
can recognize the right time and select a pre-
when the behavior is undertaken. sentation strategy suitable for the given context.
We have been conducting small user studies
to be difficult to do (for example, ClipIt, the diately after the point of action, the system with mock-up displays and are now imple-
Microsoft paperclip, attempts just-in-time help could remove the information. menting prototypes of some of the examples.
but does so in ways that often require the user Figure 1 shows two displays that might appear
to divert attention from the current task). On Our project on a wearable PDA device and convey the same
the other hand, if a user is unhappy with a con- It is the potential impact of this nonintrusive, type of information in different ways. An open
trol decision the home has made, he or she will just-in-time learning on behavior that our group question that we plan to explore is how the pre-
feel annoyed and primarily interested in coun- has begun to explore. We are interested in three sentation of information and the current con-
teracting the home’s actions. This is not the best points in time: the point of decision, the point text influence the persuasive impact of educa-
time for the home to present explanatory infor- of behavior, and the point of consequence.9 How tional messages.
mation to promote learning. A home that leaves can we use sensors that automatically detect An important consequence of using such
control to the occupant avoids this tricky issue. these specific (and sometimes fleeting) moments technology for just-in-time teaching rather than
The extraordinary potential power of per- in time to educate people about controlling their control is that the information people learn is
vasive computing comes into play when a user environment? In this example, as the occupants transferable to other environments where there
82 PERVASIVE computing http://computer.org/pervasiveOpen the marked windows now: Opened this week
Turn AC on for 1 hour
* (windows closed)
Then open these windows:
Bedroom(full)
Kitchen (halfway)
*
And open the front door.
Wind: NW @ 10 mph WHY? It’s too warm outside You 10 closest neighbors
Temp: 74°F inside, 78°F outside Pollen count high 2.3 minutes 2.1 minutes
Forecast: Cooler breezes from NW this afternoon But in an hour temp. will drop
Another
CANCEL OK option
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 1. The messages in (a) and (b) might appear on a person’s PDA device the moment he or she opens or closes a window. The
message in (c) could be displayed on the refrigerator or on a wearable wrist computer just as someone closes the refrigerator door.
is no computer technology. Additionally, the serve as a “living laboratory” to study how peo- We are developing a component-based build-
just-in-time teaching scenario might still use ple live with technology. Applications will use ing system for new homes that will be used to
automatic control of the windows but in a way this architecture to acquire information about construct the living laboratory. The flexible
that encourages people to use their physical abil- context. One existing living lab, the Georgia nature of the methodology will let us transform
ities: a young healthy person would be encour- Institute of Technology’s Aware Home, is being the lab’s physical and digital infrastructure
aged (using ubiquitous messaging) to exercise used for such studies.1 We will use our lab infra- quickly at low cost to study different spatial and
muscles by opening the window, whereas a frail, structure to quantitatively measure and quali- sensor configurations. We will use the lab to
elderly person who cannot lift the window tatively study the impact of new technologies identify the technologies that are most suitable
would be encouraged to go to the window and on people’s behavior in a real living environ- for retrofitting existing environments.
push a real or virtual automatic button. We are ment. This facility will not be a traditional home Eighty percent of the cost of building a new
also studying how to present persuasive, perva- that has been retrofitted with technology but home in the US is spent on field labor and 20
sive messages to motivate small behavior an entirely new type of home structure designed percent on materials. We are interested in revers-
changes during everyday activities. For instance, from the ground up to serve three functions: ing this ratio so that four times as much money
Figure 1c shows a message that could be dis- can be devoted to materials, design, engineer-
played on a refrigerator door (or on a wearable • Demonstrate a new type of building method- ing, safety, and technologies in the home. Bor-
wrist computer) just after the door has been ology that lets us embed technology within rowing from recent innovations in the automo-
closed to encourage awareness of energy con- the infrastructure of environments and then bile industry, House_n researchers led by project
servation. People who are informed that their easily change and upgrade it. director and architect Kent Larson have pro-
behavior is out of line with community stan- • Provide an environment in which to scien- posed an integrated “chassis–infill” construc-
dards will often naturally change their activity; tifically study home life, particularly the rela- tion system that can be rapidly installed with
in this case, a greater awareness of the need to tionships between space and information. minimal labor. In one integrated assembly, com-
keep the door shut might result. • Provide a means for evaluating whether new posite beams and columns provide structure,
types of pervasive computing interventions insulation, sensor arrays, lighting, signal and
A living laboratory have a long-term and meaningful impact on power cable raceways, and ductwork. The
Our team’s focus affects not only the type of behavior in the home. beams use special connectors that lock together
technology we are designing but also our out- easily. Infill sections that form the structure’s
look on how we must conduct research to eval- Demonstrating a building methodology interior and exterior walls are then “snapped
uate our work. We cannot evaluate the tech- Migration of pervasive computing technol- in” to the chassis structure without requiring
nologies we develop independently of the ogy from the lab to the home will require sys- skilled labor. Finally, interior finishes are
people using them. We need to study people tems that provide value to homeowners without snapped on to cover joints and wiring raceways.
using the technology in realistic, nonlaboratory unreasonable cost and disruption to their liv- The resulting structure will be easier to change
settings for long periods of time and then mea- ing environments. For example, technologies than conventional housing, require less expen-
sure whether our interventions lead to learning such as wall-sized displays will be slow to sive labor during construction, allow more
and behavior change. migrate to the home if they require skilled labor money to be spent on higher-quality materials
To address this need, we have designed a full- on site to conduct disruptive procedures such and technologies, and easily accommodate sens-
scale single-family home with an integrated and as tearing out drywall or installing digital and ing infrastructure and new output technologies.
ubiquitous sensor architecture. This facility will electrical cables. The goal of the system is to empower home-
APRIL–JUNE 2002 PERVASIVE computing 83I N T E G R AT E D E N V I R O N M E N T S
like to see all the video and audio data of activ-
Camera
ity in rooms where there are television displays
and the television was on.” The researcher
could then manually view only the small subset
of relevant data using a video retrieval tool.12
Other types of data will be available as well,
such as positions of people in the environment.
An algorithm developer could use the living lab
to acquire probabilistic data about people’s
movement around environments throughout
typical days. The lab will provide an excellent
resource with which to study, in ways not pre-
viously possible, how certain technologies dis-
rupt activity in the home.5
For instance, we have built a prototype of a
new research tool for a living lab with ubiqui-
(a) (b)
tous sensing. The tool queries users for informa-
Figure 2. (a) Sensor packs in the beams of the living lab chassis structure will contain tiny tion of value to researchers using a technique we
cameras that can periodically snap images of the activity in the environment. (b) Image- call image-based experience sampling and reflec-
based experience sampling and reflection algorithms will use a combination of ubiquitous tion.13 Figure 2 shows how it exploits the sensor
sensing, context awareness, and user interfaces for portable computing technologies to infrastructure. Suppose a researcher wishes to
acquire information from home occupants about how they perceive their environment. collect data on the types of activities that a per-
son is engaged in. As the occupants in the living
lab go about their business, the system samples
owners so that they can replace interior and exte- infrastructure to both enable and study new and stores images without disrupting the occu-
rior infill panels at will without costly and messy context-aware applications. We are currently pants’ activity. Then later, at their convenience
custom work. Infill components might include creating visually based, real-time people- and (for instance, when commuting to work on a bus
integrated wall–floor assemblies, specialty mill- object-tracking algorithms for environments or waiting in a long line), they can view the
work with transformable elements, display sys- that use these sensor packs. images on a portable computing device and eas-
tems, networked appliances and devices, and so ily enter information about what they were doing
on. The House_n research team is establishing Studying physical–digital interactions or how they were feeling about themselves or
criteria that might inform industry standards. in the home their environment. The rich contextual infor-
The team is designing the chassis compo- Relatively little research has been done on mation provided by the image or video clip trig-
nents to incorporate multipurpose “sensor the relationship between the home and tech- gers the occupant’s memory of the moment when
packs.” These are standardized sets of sensors nology, given the importance of the home in the sample was taken. Researchers can use the
that easily plug into the chassis beams at regu- life.11 Once we have constructed a living labo- data collected directly or through algorithms that
lar intervals (one every six to eight feet on aver- ratory, we will use ubiquitous sensing to quan- respond to user preferences.
age) and can provide computing applications titatively and qualitatively study human behav- Finally, we are studying the relationships
with access to data on interior and exterior envi- ior in the home—with and without new between the environment and the use of digital
ronmental conditions to support context-aware technologies. To do so, we are developing tools information. For example, by experimenting
computing. The beams are nine feet above the that will use the living lab’s sensing infrastruc- with displays integrated into devices, we found
floor. Each pack will minimally consist of a ture to acquire and semiautomatically annotate that physical constraints affect digital design.
fixed, wide-angle color camera, a microphone, data of interest to researchers. Figure 3 shows a scenario where a digital table
and temperature sensors, but other sensors can The lab’s infrastructure will make it possible and a digital counter are in an environment that
also be included (for example, an infrared cam- to continuously acquire video, audio, and appli- uses computer vision sensing to detect the table’s
era or a particulate sensor). We are developing ance-level data from every part of the environ- position. From developing such mock-ups, we
the sensor packs so that as costs drop they can ment. Researchers will be able to identify the noticed that the position and surface properties
be retrofitted into existing environments with types of situations they would like to study and of physical materials in the space implicitly con-
only a small amount of labor. then have access to a variety of data on that vey meaning about their functionality to users.
Using this construction methodology, we will activity. For instance, a researcher might be People generally expect surfaces with the same
build a laboratory facility that has visual and studying television viewing in the home. We are appearance to have the same digital properties.
auditory input sensors at regular intervals in considering the development of tools that will The user’s interaction model is established by
every room. Researchers will be able to use this let that researcher make a request such as, “I’d seeing one interaction example on a surface and
84 PERVASIVE computing http://computer.org/pervasive(a) (b) (c)
Figure 3. A digital table and counter in our lab were (a) designed for edge-to-edge video projection so that they can be abutted
against each other. Visual tracking (b) can be used to estimate objects’ positions and automatically create larger display surfaces
(c) when objects are in close physical proximity.
propagating that model along surfaces with the and behavior change. Studies run in this lab will new evidence to the diagnosis information. If
same “architectural” properties. For instance, have a limited sample size (that is, one house the system detects progression toward CHF
users who observe data projected onto one part and a small set of long-term occupants), and onset, it can notify the person that a medical
of a surface or who observe touch sensitivity on must address experimental problems such as professional should be contacted.
one part of a surface assume those properties the Hawthorne effect (a distortion of research Systems that provide information to people
extend to all parts of that architectural compo- results caused by the subjects’ response to the via computerized telephone conversations have
nent with similar physical properties. special attention they receive from researchers). proven effective at motivating behavior change.16
Similarly, users believe that physical expecta- However, our discussions with researchers in Will systems that present motivational informa-
tions should be matched in the digital world. A fields as disparate as preventive medicine and tion and acquire data for preventive diagnosis
kitchen table should move around, and com- product development have led us to believe the such as our CHF system work when placed in
bining two tables should be possible—combin- living lab will enable studies that can take place the complex environment of the home? Why or
ing the functionality involves no more than in no other way. why not and to what degree? How does context
putting the physical objects together. An envi- For instance, we have built a prototype sys- affect the way the information is received and
ronment that can automatically track movable tem that uses a PDA device and context recog- attended to? This is the type of investigation we,
objects such as people and tables and that has nition (in this case location within the environ- along with our collaborators, foresee occurring
“edge-to-edge” digital devices can extend the ment and proximity to large objects) to detect in the living lab.
physical metaphor to the digital domain, as in the onset of congestive heart failure.15 The soft- Different types of studies will require a vari-
the figure. When physical devices merge, digital ware uses a Bayesian framework not only to ety of research protocols. In addition, exactly
interfaces should merge as well.14 Researchers integrate evidence of heart failure but to select who lives in the home and for how long will be
will be able to study these issues in the living lab. meaningful questions to ask a person in a home determined based on the studies that are
given the context. Cameras monitor the envi- selected for the home after construction. As an
Measuring effectiveness ronment and detect contextual cues (for exam- example of how measurement of learning might
The last function of the living lab is to enable ple, if someone is probably sleeping because of take place, consider the earlier cross-breeze
the evaluation of certain types of pervasive lack of movement and proximity to the bed). A example. Assume that the set of studies selected
computing applications. We are particularly diagnostic system pools evidence acquired over for the home (there will be nonconflicting stud-
interested in studying how context affects the the last month and, at any moment, can deter- ies running in parallel) require three-week stays
presentation and motivational impact of infor- mine which question that is appropriate for the of subjects. During each subject’s stay, the win-
mation presented in the home environment given context will yield the most valuable evi- dow could be monitored for open and close
over long periods of time. dence. The home occupant carries a PDA events using sensors embedded in the window
Our group is collaborating with researchers device. Whenever the person pulls it out to use or visual sensors in the chassis beams. Prior to
in a variety of fields as we design the living lab. it, the PDA displays a simple but meaningful entering the home, subjects would complete a
The challenge is to design a facility and infra- question given the user’s current context. The survey that assesses their understanding of their
structure that lead to verifiable and quantifi- person quickly clicks one multiple-choice living environment, including climate control
able advances in understanding how to use per- answer with almost no interruption to the and cross-breeze management. While each set
vasive computing in homes to motivate learning intended task. Meanwhile, the system adds this of subjects is living in the home, they will
APRIL–JUNE 2002 PERVASIVE computing 85I N T E G R AT E D E N V I R O N M E N T S
manipulate the windows. If need be, the system We invite researchers who might be interested E. Bergman, ed., Morgan Kaufmann, San Fran-
could also manipulate the temperature in the in conducting studies in a living laboratory to cisco, 2000, pp. 335–360.
home to ensure that the occupants open and contact us. 10. C. Narayanaswami and M.T. Raghunath,
“Application Design for a Smart Watch with a
shut the windows. The system will log the High Resolution Display,” Proc. 4th Int’l Symp.
video, audio, and other (for example, temper- Wearable Computers (ISWC’00), IEEE CS Press,
ature) sensor data for any instance where some- Los Alamitos, Calif., 2000, pp. 7–14.
one manipulates a window. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 11. D. Hindus, “The Importance of Homes in Tech-
The sample size would be small (n < 24 for nology Research,” Proc. 2nd Int’l Workshop
Kent Larson directs the House_n: MIT Home of the Cooperative Buildings (CoBuild 99), Lecture
eight sets of subjects where three members of Future Consortium and leads the research on the chas- Notes in Computer Science 1670, Springer-Ver-
each family can operate the windows). Although sis–infill system. The ideas presented here benefited lag, Berlin, 1999, pp. 199–207.
greatly from discussions with Chuck Kukla, Dan Carlin,
some studies might only show trends and not Byron Stigge, Xiaoyi Ma, and the entire House_n team 12. P. Castro et al., “Managing Context for Internet
statistically significant results, researchers will of staff and students. Videoconferences: The Multimedia Internet
Recorder and Archive,” Proc. Multimedia Com-
be able to qualitatively study the technology’s puting and Networking 2000, vol. 3969, SPIE,
impact using the data automatically collected Bellingham, Wash., 1999; http://godfather.cs.
before, during, and after the point of decision. ucla.edu/publications/pdf/MCN2000.pdf.
Does the user appear to be attending to the infor- 13. S. Intille, C. Kukla, and X. Ma, “Eliciting User
mation at the point of decision? Does the pre- Preferences Using Image-Based Experience Sam-
pling and Reflection,” Proc. Conf. Human Fac-
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Proc. AAAI Spring Symp. Intelligent Environ- giver: The Role of Intelligent Technology in Elder
ments, tech. report SS-98-02, AAAI Press, Menlo Care, AAAI Press, Menlo Park, Calif., 2002.
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Park, Calif., 1998, pp. 110–114.
ur proposal for a home that 16. R. Friedman, “Automated Telephone Conversa-
teaches occupants how to take 3. M. Coen, “Design Principles for Intelligent Envi-
tions to Assess Health Behavior and Deliver
ronments,” Proc. 15th Nat’l Conf. Artificial Intel-
control raises the following three Behavioral Interventions,” J. Medical Systems,
ligence, AAAI Press, Menlo Park, Calif., 1998,
vol. 22, no. 2, Apr. 1998, pp. 95–102.
challenges, among others, that pp. 547–554.
would benefit from further exploration: 4. J. Rodin and E. Langer, “Long-Term Effects of a
Control-Relevant Intervention with the Institu-
tional Aged,” J. Personality and Social Psychol-
• Measuring learning or behavior change. ogy, vol. 35, no. 12, Dec. 1977, pp. 897–902.
For more information on this or any other computing
topic, please visit our Digital Library at http://
How can we develop algorithms and systems
5. W. Edwards and R. Grinter, “At Home with computer.org/publications/dlib.
that use context-aware sensing to measure Ubiquitous Computing: Seven Challenges,” Proc.
the impact of new technologies on learning 3rd Int’l Conf. Ubiquitous Computing, Lecture
and behavior over long periods of use? Notes in Computer Science 2201, Springer-Ver-
lag, Berlin, 2001, pp. 256–272; www.parc.
• Using context-based simulation. One of the xerox.com/csl/members/grinter/ubicomp.pdf. the AUTHOR
most effective ways to learn is through 6. C. Pinhanez, “The Everywhere Displays Projec-
Stephen S. Intille is a research scientist working
guided exploration via simulation. Can we tor: A Device to Create Ubiquitous Graphical
with the Changing Places/House_n: MIT Home of
create real-time simulations of environments Interfaces,” Proc. UbiComp 2001: Ubiquitous
the Future Project in the MIT School of Architec-
Computing, LLCS 2201, Springer-Verlag, Berlin,
that can be used to show people the impact 2001, pp. 315–331; www.research.ibm.com/ed/
ture and Planning. His research focuses on the
development of context recognition algorithms
of their actions at the point of decision? For publications/ubicomp01.pdf.
and interface design strategies for ubiquitous com-
instance, if I open this window now to this 7. C. Seligman, L. Becker, and J.M. Darley, “Behav- puting environments. He is creating pervasive
degree, what is the estimated impact on the ioral Approaches to Residential Energy Conser- technologies for persuasive environments that
vation,” Energy and Building, vol. 1, 1977–1978, motivate behavior change over long periods of
breeze in my home one hour from now? pp. 325–337. time. A special interest is behavior change tech-
Also, can these systems exploit the Internet nologies for proactive, preventive health care in
8. R. Winkler and R. Winett, “Behavioral Inter-
for automatically acquiring required data? ventions in Resource Conservation: A Systems the home. He received a PhD in media arts and
sciences from MIT, an SM from MIT, and a BSE in
• Detecting the point of decision. How can we Approach Based on Behavioral Economics,”
computer science and engineering from the Uni-
identify the point of decision for various American Psychologist, vol. 37, 1982, pp.
versity of Pennsylvania. Contact him at intille@
421–435.
activities and then detect these moments in mit.edu.
9. B. Fogg, “Persuasive Technologies and Netsmart
time automatically? Devices,” Information Appliances and Beyond,
86 PERVASIVE computing http://computer.org/pervasiveYou can also read
