Ambient Reflection: Towards Self-explaining Devices

In the course of ubiquitous and pervasive computing a variety of smart devices are developed and entering our everyday life. These devices increasingly rely on novel interaction modalities from the field of Natural Interaction, such as gesture control. Common concepts to explain and illustrate devices’ interaction possibilities can’t be applied to these interaction techniques due to embedding of devices and as a consequence disappearing interfaces as well as distribution of functionalities among device ensembles in terms of IoT, AAL and Smart Home. These emerging and currently existing problems in accessing devices’ interaction possibilities present users with new challenges. In addition, current possibilities for device documentation provide only a limited viable option to learn devices. Hence, a general documentation for interconnected devices and thus functionality can not be created manually. In order to counteract these problems we present an approach for in-situ generation of an ambient manual for interconnected smart devices.