1. SMARCOS: Artemis project 100017
SMARCOS INTERUSABLE DEVICES
informal information sharing was To approach these challenges we conduc-
WHAT investigated. In the next cycle of iteration, ted two small-scale trials:
the focus are techniques with which users
To explore the usability of communicating can build services out of connected 1. Development and evaluation of a
embedded devices through a combination context-aware devices. mash-up editor to compose web
of user centric research and technology applications through direct manipulation,
developments that are validated in several FIRST RESULTS which investigated how users could
large and small scale trials. The combine content, presentation and
background trends identified in Smarcos – An experimental mobile application application functionality from disparate
increased computing and networking (ContextCapture), which allows users to Web sources and thus enhance their daily
capabilities of embedded devices, need for add different descriptions of context activities.
end-user programming and customization, information to their social networking
the rise of cloud computing – threaten to entries. The results found show that: 2. Testing and monitoring web
render many embedded devices rather Most frequently used awareness cues in applications on daily tasks with users on
difficult to use. Smarcos seeks to alleviate the test setting were location, surroun- the go using smart phones. These
this threat by enableing a seamless and dings, friends and activity. activities are still ongoing, and results are
„natural‟ interaction between the User defined semantic abstractions (e.g. being analyzed and to be yet disseminated.
employed technology and its users, with “home”, “work”) were often more
the main objective of enhancing and informative and useful than more accurate
enriching their lives. indicators (e.g. the address or the name
of the place).
HOW Using shared context from friends in
vicinity needs careful design to overcome
The work is carried out iteratively in rapid the extended privacy implications.
cycles of concept creation, design,
implementation and testing. All major
developments are incrementally validated
As the systems become more complex,
featuring more functions, it is increasingly
difficult to foresee how people will
Smart Composite
in small scale trials. In the first cycle of
concept development the usage of
context-based awareness cues in
actually use them. This trend is
strengthened through cloud computing, HUMAN COMPUTER INTERFACES
where data exchange between different ContextCapture -application demonstrated at
services is used to create ad-hoc mash-
ups.
UbiComp 2011 in Beijing, China www.smarcos-project.eu
SMARCOS COMPLEX SYSTEMS CONTROL
Therefore, four different pilots are being HOW INTRODUCTION plague many commercial and symbols, exchange context
developed to cover separate areas of offerings. New challenges have information, user actions, and
technology, learning while building and To do so, each of the four main pilots is also come up for user semantic data. It allows
proving through achievements. The core being supervised by one of the main Smarcos project aims to help
of Smarcos Complex system control is: partners of the WP, with the other users of interconnected interaction: multiple platforms, applications to follow the user's
partners providing support when needed. embedded systems by ensuring multi-user applications, actions, predict needs and
Aviation pilot: New technology The partners also collaborate with each
adapted to the Electronic Flight Bag, their interusability. Nowadays, internet synchronization, and react appropriately to
other, studying potential joint pursuits application and service unexpected actions.
offering an interface for an airplane pilot both technologically and otherwise, and users deal with many products
to be used during flight from the perform collaborative management on an connected with web services adaptation to the changing
cockpit, interacting with the airplane's international range thanks to the (media players, refrigerators, situational contexts. Existing Smarcos use cases go around
systems to share data with it. advantages of the ARTEMIS environment. e-books, even cars). This efforts towards interoperability three complementary domains:
Monitoring system pilot: Several distributed computing is have largely focused on attentive personal systems,
monitors will collect, visualize and BENEFITS
Complex Control Systems Domains distribute information to present it in a becoming the norm in architectures. Smarcos extends interusable devices and com-
large area display, so that several users Research is fruitful not only by itself. In embedded systems. these efforts on to the user plex systems control. Our
WHAT can interact with the same display wall. this case, it also provides progress beyond level. results will be applicable to all
This will be used in traffic and security the state of the art, as Smarcos is building embedded systems that
Smarcos centers in the research and devices that did not exist until now. However, connection problems,
for emergency control situations.
development of new interface designs, firmware incompatibilities, Therefore, Smarcos allows interact with their users, which
increasing the usability of the Disabled people pilot: Advanced Besides, the result products are expected incomprehensible dialogue devices and services to is a substantial fraction of
ever-growing technology that users find technology with less-than-usual to be marketable for several purposes. boxes and just plain bugs communicate in UI level terms today's market.
on a quotidian basis; but human-machine interfaces will ease the interaction of The main customers currently in mind are
communication is increasingly difficult as visually-impaired people with their mostly industries of several kinds, such as
the machine perform gradually more environment, making their daily emergencies and control systems, but this
intricate, while strictly needed, activities. interactions easier than now. will always be of advantage to the final
Interface research must be studied consumer.
independently when dealing with very Vehicles pilot: Using advanced
sophisticated, multi-layered devices. This communication technology, vehicles will
is why Smarcos focuses also on the automatically report their situation and
control of the so-called complex systems. status to each other, & start automatic
The second goal is the reusability of processes when needed in a case of
components. emergency

2. SMARCOS DESIGN METHODS AND CONCEPTING SMARCOS TOOLS FOR RUNTIME UI & CONTEXT COMPOSITION
WHAT systems. Through semi-structured WHAT support design-time. The key questions to
interviews of 17 professionals working on explore are:
Smarcos objective within this domain is to interaction design and probed into the To enable successful inter-usability How does a change in a part of a system
develop and refine design methods for challenges faced in their daily work. between devices located in an affect the other parts (seeing the change
interconnected embedded systems, and environment we need tools and methods visually)? This can be visualized simulating
applying the developed methods for The identified challenges include but are for processing information on contexts the control and data flow among the
creating Smarcos application and service not limited to: the inefficiency of using and interaction tasks of users at a interconnected/inter-usable system´s parts.
concepts. Traditional concept and UI low-fi prototypes in a lab environment to run-time. In order to accomplish an E.g. how does a sensed context changed
design are based on a given type of test inter-usability and the challenges of interaction task successfully in multi UI affect the perceived system state?
interface (e.g. a web browser or mobile “seeing the big picture” when designing a environment, the devices must be able to
negotiate their properties, current The ability to “mash up” composition of
phone) with a limited number of user part of an interconnected system. Using interconnected components into the
stories. In Smarcos, our focus is on this insight we can approach the context and to compose user interfaces system through a visual programming
systems that operate in a context of challenges with tools to support the Map of themes and relationships identified to fit to given conditions. paradigm (e.g. cable patching metaphor to
multiple devices and involve a large specific needs of interaction design. establish data and control flow between UI Wireframe mock-up for the prototyping inter-usability
from benchmarking tool, displaying a view for assigning properties to entities
number of user stories. In this context, This section develops tools for processing different components, establishing a
both established and experimental design Secondly, to generate insight into user BENEFITS models at design and run-time. The composition)
methods are going to be applied, interface designs, metaphors and developed tools, methods and algorithms
evaluated and refined. interactions currently applied in Using the aggregated set of design guide- enable quick and cost efficient (power and BENEFITS Various decision making strategies are being
cross-platform and networked services lines and best practices, designers can computational complexity) functionalities developed for run-time support, such as
HOW we used 4-stage design process (research, avoid common pitfalls in designing inter- for UI composition and context The benefits span the whole development- deciding on the most suitable device for
analyze, synthesize, create) to benchmark usable systems processing. The developed methods are cycle of inter-usable systems. Using the giving feedback to the user. To evaluate the
To approach the objectives we have used existing cross-platform, inter-usable A holistic set of methods and guidelines evaluated according to technical developed prototyping tool, the designers developed methods and tools the approach
a set of research methods from interviews services such as Spotify, Google TV, for the designers to tackle the emerging requirements derived from Smarcos of inter-usable systems will have a way to is tested using the scenarios from Smarcos
to surveying and from design workshops Nike+GPS and Nabaztag. The analysis design challenges in developing cross- application domains. test and analyze the system behavior using application domains.
to benchmarking of existing services and resulted in a set of 16 topics, grouped into platform services rapid prototyping. Using the developed
products. four larger subject areas: Crossing In addition we seek at demonstrating the HOW methods and algorithms for enabling The developed tools and methods are
Platforms; Networked and Connected gathered knowledge as new concepts of run-time context recognition, the evaluated by integrating them into
First of all, to start off we investigated the Services; Managing Complexity; and applications and services which demons- Three development phase stages address developers of inter-usable systems can small-scale trials in relevant application
current challenges the designers are facing Communicating across Platforms. trate innovative and novel use of inter- the challenges of developing inter-usable develop rules for context triggered demonstrators (demos and trials are
in the emerging fields of interactive connected devices in practice systems: design & run-time and evaluation. developed in the Smarcos industrial
functionalities, such as providing
A tool is being developed for prototyping situation-aware feedback. applications).
different aspects of inter-usability to
SMARCOS INTERFACE, & CONTEXT MODELLING SMARCOS ATTENTIVE PERSONAL SYSTEMS
WHAT model the scenarios considered in the derive the possible platform-dependent WHAT Which advice to send to the user The system‟s architecture builds on the
work packages application. The extended implementations through refinement of existing context aware SOFIA platform,
The objective of Smarcos in this area is to models are represented in languages general vocabulary The goal of attentive personal systems is To which device the advice should be sent which provides a technical solution for
develop models for inter-usable user (CTT, MARIA, context) that allow the Facilitate the possibility of developing to provide a use case of a system which How the advice should be presented connecting multiple devices to one system,
interfaces (UI) & context-based development of tools able to analyze, context-dependent adaptation engines uses several sensing devices to sense the (visual, auditory, haptic, or a combination of allowing us to focus on the method for
functionalities. Such models can be useful manipulate, and exploit their content. that are independent of the context the user, integrates the data these) integration of information and presentation
to better obtain context-dependent UI Such a tools can be useful to obtain implementation languages obtained from the sensing devices into a of the system to the user. A number of
adaptation and collaborative context context-dependent UIs for various types Allow the possibility of semantic knowledge base and uses this knowledge The right timing of the advice (send it prototypes will be constructed and tested
negotiations. The models enable support of interactive devices. The capabilities of reasoning about how to dynamically to provide context-tailored advice to immediately, or wait until the meeting is by user from both target groups (office
for multiple interaction modalities and for the resulting languages and tools are support users in accomplishing their motivate healthy behaviour. The over, or until the user stopped typing, etc.) workers and diabetes patients), following
multitude of devices, seamless context validated through their applications to activities challenges are (1) to obtain knowledge of Smarcos design methods and concepting
negotiations and UI adaptation various case studies relevant for the the user‟s context in an unobtrusive guidelines.
mechanisms. Moreover, the models act as project goals, e.g. application to model A number of tools have been developed in manner, (2) to calculate context-tailored
a support for developing runtime and generation of adapated UI WP3 to develop model-based specification advice and feedback on performance from
mechanisms for interconnected and implementation for applications that allow and exploit them at design and run-time. this sensed context, and (3) to present BENEFITS
migratory UIs of applications and services. users to get messages/notifications advice and feedback about the user‟s
The models are provided in semantic and regarding their health conditions. performance in several health domains in The final prototype provides a way to
machine understandable format to enable a user-friendly way. manufacture a holistic solution for healthy
rapid processing. The format of models BENEFITS lifestyle promotion and also demonstrate a
aim at W3C compatibility for facilitating HOW methodology for creating a user friendly
wide exploitation and impact for various The adoption of model-based approaches multiple-device system – an interusable
software industries. has various advantages: To overcome these three challenges, a system - for the consumer market.
Highlight important aspects to be system is devised that uses sensing devices
HOW considered by designers & developers that the user is already using: a mobile All prototypes will be tested by a small
when developing interactive applications phone, a computer, a television, a pill group of target users. Online questionnaires
Once the relevant model has been Provide precise documentation of the dispenser, an activity monitor. These will also be used to test the system‟s
identified (task, UI, context), the previous design choices devices are connected to one Smarcos Interusability via concept in a larger group of people.
in the area is started and extedend to Allow designers in multi-device UI to system, where they share their Smart Interoperable Devices
better address the issues raised by obtain a small general vocabulary for Inter-usable User Interfaces information. This shared information is
multi-device environments,with particular describing possible interactions and then then used to determine:
attention to the necessary aspects to