Learning about End-User Development for Smart Homes by "Eating Our Own Dog Food"
This work addresses usability and refinement issues for end-users in smart home technology, but it is incremental as it focuses on preliminary testing before broader experiments.
The researchers tackled the challenge of refining an End-User Development Environment (SPOK) for smart homes by deploying it in the homes of 5 project team members for over 4 months, resulting in lessons learned for future testing with families.
SPOK is an End-User Development Environment that permits people to monitor, control, and configure smart home services and devices. SPOK has been deployed for more than 4 months in the homes of 5 project team members for testing and refinement, prior to longitudinal experiments in the homes of families not involved in the project. This article reports on the lessons learned in this initial deployment.