User Interface for an In-Home Environment

This paper describes the development of novel user interface concepts for an in-home environment. If interaction devices at various places in a house are interconnected through an in-home network, people are no longer restricted to a location where a device with a particular functionality is located. Instead, they are even able to start an activity (such as watching a movie or making a videophone call) in one room and continue it in another room of the house. Two user interface concepts are described that enable this relocation of activities. In addition, a user interface is described for local activity handling, such as beginning and ending activities and switching between activities. We followed an iterative and user-centered approach with several evaluations during the process. A fully working in-home network was implemented and evaluated with both UI experts and potential end-users.