Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The aim of this paper is to assess the relevance of data security in the home environment and to identify the nature of vulnerability. At the time of writing most data in the home is stored manually. The widespread use of the Internet, home pc’s and mobile devices now means that increasingly individuals (and families) are storing “home information” electronically. It is highly likely to be a trend that continues. Information on specific data security related issues is widely available in terms of “how to protect your pc” and there are also many products that are available to assist with this. The level of actual understanding that home users have of the general data security issues and the means that they take to protect themselves are not well documented. The approach taken in this paper is to look at many of the data security threats posed to existing ICT devices and to put them in the context of systems that are currently used or may be used in future, in the home environment. The paper clearly defines that it is not concerned with the broader topics of data assurance (which would include fire, flood etc). The primary focus is the potential for malicious acts being committed by unauthorised use of the systems. Where are the threats from and what can be done to alleviate them? Are the main vulnerabilities in the connectivity, the systems, or both? Since technology now softens the “environmental” boundaries, this paper alludes to the scope of the home environment. It also discusses existing solutions to perceived threats; whether they appear to be understood and whether they appear to be working. It looks for the evidence to demonstrate the significance of data security in relation to the development of “intelligent homes”. The paper then takes into consideration the directions in which technology appears to be developing in arriving at conclusions.

Providing good care to people with dementia at home is becoming an important issue as the size of the elderly population increases. One of the main problems in providing such care is that it must be constantly provided without interruption, and this places a great burden on caregivers who are often family members. is what we call the methods designed to relieve the stress of people suffering from dementia as well as that of their family members. This therapy aims to provide a system that interacts with people with dementia by utilizing various engaging stimuli. One such stimulus is a reminiscence video created from old photo albums, which is a promising way to hold a person’s attention for a long time. In this paper, we first present an authoring tool to assist in the production of a reminiscence video and then discuss the effectiveness of presenting such a video to people with dementia.

The Audiophoto Desk is a tangible interface. It plays a sound that has been associated with a photograph when a printed version of that photograph is placed on the desk’s surface. This study explored how three groups of four friends used the desk to share photographs in the context of two types of photo-talk: reminiscing and storytelling. The study had three aims. The first was to investigate the types of sound that users would choose to accompany their photographs. In particular it was of interest to see whether recipient design would be relevant in explaining why the participants chose some of their sounds. The second aim was to examine the effect that different types of audio would have on the conversations during photograph sharing. Music, sound effects and voiceovers were found to have different effects on the latency before the conversation began and the extent of the conversation. The third aim was to understand the user experience of the groups. Despite the use of printed photographs, some participants felt that the Audiophoto Desk made photograph sharing too formal a process for the home.

The central theme in Ambient Intelligence is that powerful computation, communication and storage facilities are available, but are invisible. We believe that will play an important role as mediators. In order to make models of mediation and to study the mediation of behaviour, traditional modelling techniques, such as foam models, rendering etc. fall short. Although it is easy to make two-dimensional models of screens and front-panels and connect actions to the corresponding buttons, this approach is inadequate for new types of interfaces and behaviours which are not screen-based. Therefore we have experimented with an approach which we call 4D Sketching. The term 4D refers to the fact that it includes sketching in 3D space with the active behaviour adding a fourth, temporal dimension. We use foam, cardboard, a glue-gun, and other easy-to-use materials for the spatial sketching. We use a microprocessor, servo-motors and sensors to sketch active behaviour. The article describes the underlying philosophy, the technical aspects and a number of experiences gathered so-far, including student work from a project called Semotion.

This paper reports work from the first stage of a project investigating movie based fun, focused on content and delivery by broadband into the home and to mobile telephones. After considering ‘fun’, the changing technical and social context of digital technology and digital experiences is examined, to understand how people’s enjoyable experiences are changing. Then a detailed scenario of what is here called the experience rich home interface is presented, before highlighting some of the design issues. The paper concludes by identifying the next phase of the research, an engagement with people’s experience of movie content.

This paper reports on the results of an exercise held at the National Centre for Product Design Research (PDR) which is based at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC) in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, and two UK Top Ten design consultancies, Alloy Product Design and PDD. The event was sponsored by the Audi Design Foundation and set out to cover the ground from briefing document to the full design and prototyping of an Information Appliance within 24 hours. The exercise was undertaken by two teams, one based in London at PDD’s headquarters and comprising staff from PDD and Nottingham Trent, and another comprising staff from UWIC and Alloy Product Design, based in Cardiff. The latter team had access to an interface development methodology described in the paper while the former did not. This paper will initially concentrate on the activities of the interface design team based in Cardiff, their design strategies and, in particular, their use of the prototyping methodologies developed at UWIC. The paper reports on the structure of the “day”, negotiations between the various teams, the consequent concessions and the integration of GUI and hardware aspects of the interface design process. It then examines the results of the Nottingham Trent/PDD team’s efforts and compares the approaches and the results. In conclusion it examines the UWIC interface development methodology process’s strengths and weaknesses, particularly through comparison with the more traditional design approach undertaken by the other team.

In this paper, I describe work oriented to better understanding meaning-making within the experiences of blind people. Based on pragmatist aesthetics, the work presented forms part of an extended project towards the development of an interactive chair designed in light of specific ways in which blind people construct meaningful experiences around interactive artefacts. This paper discusses one phase of the research leading up to the construction of the chair that has involved the use of storytelling as an imaginative means of exploring interaction possibilities and experiential quality. The work is aimed at fostering an approach that prioritises designer agency and supports a connection between the different ways of experiencing of a sighted designer and blind users of the artefact. A story is presented and conclusions are drawn for the continuing work.

The telephone is the most important piece of personal communication technology in the home. It is a technology that is accessible to nearly all people – except those with hearing impairments. Speech recognition and synthesis technology might be used to make telephone communication between a deaf and a hearing person possible. The necessary speaker-independent speech recognition technology is not currently available, but this paper reports a study in which such technology was simulated in order to test the feasibility of such communication. The results demonstrate that such a system would be highly desirable, but it will not be feasible until speech recognition rates are greatly improved.

We are interested in exploring how entertainment in games can be combined with educational goals to make a compelling experience. In this paper we present our design study for the development of a mod game, Antarctic NWN. We first present the background for the game, objectives, and then discuss the gameplay of Antarctic NWN. We then explore issues that influence the design of a gripping game. One important issue is the relation between reality, simulation and game word. Then we focus on enhancing emotional involvement. Emotion is especially relevant to role-play game as it draws players into the story, and supports aesthetic understanding. We also look more specifically at the role of humour in this context. Humour enhances learning as well as providing a more pleasurable experience. In our quest to understand how games can both delight and instruct, we review the environment in which our game might be played, within the classroom and describe different scenarios of use.

This paper describes the research plans in the SuperAssist project, introducing personal assistants in the care of diabetes patients, assisting the patients themselves, the medical specialists looking after the patients’ healthcare, and the technical specialists responsible for maintaining the health of the devices involved. The paper discusses the issues of trust and cooperation as the critical success factors within this multi-user multi-agent (MUMA) project and within the future of agent-based healthcare attempting to increase the self-help abilities of individual patients.