Luciano Gamberini

Andrea Zanella, Federico Mason, Patrik Pluchino et al.

This paper discusses the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm in the context of assisted living for elderly and fragile people, in the light of the peculiar requirements of such users, both from a functional and a technological perspective. We stress some aspects that are often disregarded by the technical community, such as technology acceptability and usability, and we describe the framework and the phases of the current co-design approaches that imply the active involvement of the final users in the system design process. Thereby, we identify a series of design practices to merge technical and fragile people's requirements. The discussion is backed up by the description of DOMHO, a prototypal IoT-based AAL system that embodies most of the concepts described in the paper, and that is being deployed and tested in a shelter house for elders, and in an apartment for the co-housing of individuals with disabilities. Finally, we discuss the potential and limits of the current approaches and present some open challenges and future research directions.

Anna Spagnolli, Diletta Mora, Matteo Fanchin et al.

Although the live music entertainment sector does not directly fuel the current debate on automation, it might harbor positions that resonate with it. In this paper we study a prototype software application helping DJs and VJs to accurately manage and even automate the synchronization of visuals with music during amateur or professional live performance. The goal of the study was to unravel VJs' and DJs' ambivalent positions about this software. We preliminarily investigated VJs' and DJs' perception of their sector of activity with seven face-to-face interviews and an online survey (N = 102); then, we asked DJs and VJs (N = 25) for their opinions about our prototype software application. Four core controversies were identified in their answers, along with a set of arguments mobilized to take side on them. The advantages of focusing on ambivalence and argumentation when studying users' response to new media are discussed.