Obiettivo
The aim of the ACCORD project has been to create a tangible toolbox that enables people to convert a physical environment into an active tangible environment, which enables functionality to emerge from the combination of a number of devices in practice. The main objective of the project has thus been to realise the facilities needed to administer and manage the complexity inherent in activities within the home environment. This includes dynamic and adaptive methods, techniques and facilities to allow the inhabitants to evolve their own environment. The aim of the ACCORD project has been to create a tangible toolbox that enables people to convert a physical environment into an active tangible environment, which enables functionality to emerge from the combination of a number of devices in practice. The main objective of the project has thus been to realise the facilities needed to administer and manage the complexity inherent in activities within the home environment. This includes dynamic and adaptive methods, techniques and facilities to allow the inhabitants to evolve their own environment.
OBJECTIVES
More specifically the project objectives have been:
1. Understand and alter the world: What current and new forms of application are likely to emerge within the home and what activities need to be supported?
2. Support an interactive world: What mechanisms are needed to support the different activities within an interactive domestic environment?
3. Design the world: How do we develop and refine for new uses of information and new forms of applications?
DESCRIPTION OF WORK
Research and results:
The research of ACCORD has mainly been focused around the realisation of a tangible toolbox. A compositional model has been proposed and the model as well as facilities to make it work have been implemented in the system. By early on, the project has focussed on studies of existing technology and established activities in existing domestic settings, which permitted to achieve insights into several possible future scenarios. Furthermore, these studies resulted in acquiring knowledge about common use of technology within the home. This has been described in the Patterns of Home Life. All of this was taken into consideration when developing the compositional model.
During the course of the project, several components of services have been implemented as examples of possible use and to study the tangible toolbox in use. Issues regarding the use and representation of these components were encountered. In order to be able to proceed with the main focus of the project, these had to be solved to enable users to elaborate on compositions rather than the more obvious issues with each component. Furthermore, the project became concretely aware of the differences in practice within the fields of computer science and material science. Developing prototypes with printed interfaces on paper and developing new printing methods and inks takes much longer time when compared to using computer graphics to achieve the same interface.
A large extent of the later part of the project was spent with users, to find out how they understand the proposed compositional model. A mock-up of the paper-based editor was brought to several families and researchers had discussions with them around the proposed model. These studies revealed that users easily understand the concept of composing services and several new components were suggested. Some of these have been implemented and brought back to the users for further feedback. However, much more research is needed to fully understand how to develop such systems. For instance one open research question is to find what degree of complexity users can grasp easily.
Campo scientifico
Argomento(i)
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CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinatore
164 29 KISTA
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