Smarcos centers its research on developing new interface designs and increasing usability for interconnected technology users encounter daily. It explores using embedded devices through contextual collaboration and natural human-computer interaction. The document outlines four pilots evaluating these concepts: aviation, monitoring, assistance for disabled people, and vehicle systems. The work iterates through design, implementation, and testing to enhance human-human and human-device interaction employing ubiquitous computing.

1. SMARCOS: Artemis project 100017
INTERUSABLE DEVICES
first cycle of concept development the
WHAT  Nemein: Contextual Collaboration usage of context-based awareness cues in
Space: Building a system that gathers informal information sharing was investi-
Smarcos propose new seamless and project data from all the relevant infor- gated. In the next cycle of iteration, the
„natural‟ ways to interact between the mation systems in an organization, focus are techniques with which users can
employed technology and its users, with merges them into an overall picture of build services out of connected context-
the main objective of enhancing and en- what is happening aware devices.
riching their lives: It explores the usability  University of Twente: Smart Photo
of communicating embedded devices Sharing: It aims to develop a smart
through a combination of user centric photo-sharing application for smartphone BENEFITS
research and technology developments devices that provides a holistic experi- The trials demonstrate new ways to fos-
that are validated in several medium- and ence to its participants by providing ter and enrich human-human interaction
capture, share and consumption and human-computer-device interaction
small-scale trials: support.
 Ixonos’ WutuBand: A tangible UI that employing ubiquitous computing and em-
 VTT Context-Aware User Interface bedded systems.
can be used to track one's health, sim- Migration: The ContextMigrationDae-
plify tasks, track the user's location, mon mobile application in conjunction
provide reminders and safety signals and .
with the Migration Platform is a proof-of
other uses. -concept prototype on migrating the user
 Indra’s NFC-based bicycle rental: interface based on contextual triggers.
Indra is currently working in a mid-scale  TP Vision's Smart Phone interaction
prototype with a bicycle-rental scenario with embedded systems: explores the
in which the user accesses to the prod- control of embedded systems by enabling
uct by using an NFC smart phone. the mobile phone to exchange informa-
 Offcode’s Domestic Energy-User In- tion based on ontology structures
terface: The UI can be distributed to
mobile terminals, but it will also be build
visible at home in the i.e in the kitchen.
 ISTI-CNR’s Mashup Editor: It allows
HOW
Smart Composite
The work is carried out iteratively in
the creation of a communication system
among components originally belonging
to different applications, composing web
rapid cycles of concept creation, design,
implementation and testing. All major HUMAN COMPUTER INTERFACES
components with a direct selection and developments are incrementally validated ContextCapture -application demonstrated at
manipulation of existing web applications. in medium- and small-scale trials. In the UbiComp 2011 in Beijing, China www.smarcos-project.eu
SMARCOS COMPLEX SYSTEMS CONTROL
Therefore, four different pilots are being HOW INTRODUCTION plague many commercial and symbols, exchange context
developed to cover separate areas of offerings. New challenges have information, user actions, and
technology, learning while building and To do so, each of the four main pilots is also come up for user semantic data. It allows
proving through achievements. The core being supervised by one of the main Smarcos project aims to help
of Smarcos Complex system control is: partners of the WP, with the other users of interconnected interaction: multiple platforms, applications to follow the user's
partners providing support when embedded systems by ensuring multi-user applications, actions, predict needs and
 Aviation pilot: New technology needed. The partners also collaborate
adapted to the Electronic Flight Bag, their interusability. Nowadays, internet synchronization, and react appropriately to
with each other, studying potential joint application and service unexpected actions.
offering an interface for an airplane pilot pursuits both technologically and other- users deal with many products
to be used during flight from the wise, and perform collaborative manage- connected with web services adaptation to the changing
cockpit, interacting with the airplane's ment on an international range thanks to (media players, refrigerators, situational contexts. Existing Smarcos use cases go around
systems to share data with it. the advantages of the ARTEMIS e-books, even cars). This efforts towards interoperability three complementary domains:
 Monitoring system pilot: Several environment.
distributed computing is have largely focused on attentive personal systems,
monitors will collect, visualize and architectures. Smarcos extends interusable devices and com-
Complex Control Systems Domains distribute information to present it in a BENEFITS becoming the norm in
large area display, so that several users embedded systems. these efforts on to the user plex systems control. Our
WHAT can interact with the same display wall. Research is fruitful not only by itself. In level. results will be applicable to all
This will be used in traffic and security this case, it also provides progress beyond embedded systems that
Smarcos centers in the research and the state of the art, as Smarcos is building However, connection problems,
for emergency control situations. Therefore, Smarcos allows interact with their users, which
development of new interface designs, devices that did not exist until now. firmware incompatibilities,
increasing the usability of the  Disabled people pilot: Advanced incomprehensible dialogue devices and services to is a substantial fraction of
ever-growing technology that users find technology with less-than-usual Besides, the result products are expected boxes and just plain bugs communicate in UI level terms today's market.
on a quotidian basis; but human-machine interfaces will ease the interaction of to be marketable for several purposes.
communication is increasingly difficult as visually-impaired people with their The main customers currently in mind are
the machine perform gradually more environment, making their daily mostly industries of several kinds, such as
intricate, while strictly needed, activities. interactions easier than now. emergencies and control systems, but this
Interface research must be studied will always be of advantage to the final
independently when dealing with very  Vehicles pilot: Using advanced consumer.
sophisticated, multi-layered devices. This communication technology, vehicles will
is why Smarcos focuses also on the automatically report their situation and
control of the so-called complex systems. status to each other, & start automatic
The second goal is the reusability of processes when needed in a case of
components. emergency

2. DESIGN METHODS AND CONCEPTING TOOLS FOR RUNTIME UI & CONTEXT COMPOSITION
WHAT systems. Through semi-structured WHAT support design-time. The key questions to
interviews of 17 professionals working on explore are:
Smarcos objective within this section is to interaction design and probed into the To enable successful inter-usability How does a change in a part of a system
develop and refine design methods for challenges faced in their daily work. between devices located in an affect the other parts (seeing the change
interconnected embedded systems, and environment we need tools and methods visually)? This can be visualized simulating
applying the developed methods for The identified challenges include but are for processing information on contexts the control and data flow among the
creating Smarcos application and service not limited to: the inefficiency of using and interaction tasks of users at a interconnected/inter-usable system´s parts.
concepts. Traditional concept and UI low-fi prototypes in a lab environment to run-time. In order to accomplish an E.g. how does a sensed context changed
design are based on a given type of test inter-usability and the challenges of interaction task successfully in multi UI affect the perceived system state?
interface (e.g. a web browser or mobile “seeing the big picture” when designing a environment, the devices must be able to
negotiate their properties, current The ability to “mash up” composition of
phone) with a limited number of user part of an interconnected system. Using interconnected components into the
stories. In Smarcos, our focus is on this insight we can approach the context and to compose user interfaces system through a visual programming
systems that operate in a context of challenges with tools to support the Map of themes and relationships identified to fit to given conditions. paradigm (e.g. cable patching metaphor to
multiple devices and involve a large specific needs of interaction design. establish data and control flow between UI Wireframe mock-up for the prototyping inter-usability
from benchmarking tool, displaying a view for assigning properties to entities
number of user stories. In this context, This section develops tools for processing different components, establishing a
both established and experimental design Secondly, to generate insight into user BENEFITS models at design and run-time. The composition)
methods are going to be applied, interface designs, metaphors and developed tools, methods and algorithms
evaluated and refined. interactions currently applied in Using the aggregated set of design guide- enable quick and cost efficient (power and BENEFITS Various decision making strategies are being
cross-platform and networked services lines and best practices, designers can computational complexity) functionalities developed for run-time support, such as
HOW we used 4-stage design process (research, avoid common pitfalls in designing inter- for UI composition and context The benefits span the whole development- deciding on the most suitable device for
analyze, synthesize, create) to benchmark usable systems processing. The developed methods are cycle of inter-usable systems. Using the giving feedback to the user. To evaluate the
To approach the objectives we have used existing cross-platform, inter-usable A holistic set of methods and guidelines evaluated according to technical developed prototyping tool, the designers developed methods and tools the approach
a set of research methods from interviews services such as Spotify, Google TV, for the designers to tackle the emerging requirements derived from Smarcos of inter-usable systems will have a way to is tested using the scenarios from Smarcos
to surveying and from design workshops Nike+GPS and Nabaztag. The analysis design challenges in developing cross- application domains. test and analyze the system behaviour using application domains.
to benchmarking of existing services and resulted in a set of 16 topics, grouped into platform services rapid prototyping. Using the developed
products. four larger subject areas: Crossing In addition we seek at demonstrating the HOW methods and algorithms for enabling The developed tools and methods are
Platforms; Networked and Connected gathered knowledge as new concepts of run-time context recognition, the evaluated by integrating them into
First of all, to start off we investigated the Services; Managing Complexity; and applications and services which demon- Three development phase stages address developers of inter-usable systems can small-scale trials in relevant application
current challenges the designers are facing Communicating across Platforms. strate innovative and novel use of inter- the challenges of developing inter-usable develop rules for context triggered demonstrators (demos and trials are
in the emerging fields of interactive connected devices in practice systems: design & run-time and evaluation. developed in the Smarcos industrial
functionalities, such as providing
A tool is being developed for prototyping situation-aware feedback. applications).
different aspects of inter-usability to
INTERFACE, INTERACTION AND CONTEXT MODELLING ATTENTIVE PERSONAL SYSTEMS
WHAT model the scenarios considered in the derive the possible platform-dependent WHAT Which advice to send to the user The system‟s architecture builds on the
work packages application. The extended implementations through refinement of existing context aware SOFIA platform,
The objective of Smarcos in this area is to models are represented in languages general vocabulary The goal of attentive personal systems is To which device the advice should be sent which provides a technical solution for
develop models for inter-usable user (CTT, MARIA, context) that allow the Facilitate the possibility of developing to provide a use case of a system which How the advice should be presented connecting multiple devices to one system,
interfaces (UI) & context-based development of tools able to analyze, context-dependent adaptation engines uses several sensing devices to sense the (visual, auditory, haptic, or a combination of allowing us to focus on the method for
functionalities. Such models can be useful manipulate, and exploit their content. that are independent of the context the user, integrates the data these) integration of information and presentation
to better obtain context-dependent UI Such a tools can be useful to obtain implementation languages obtained from the sensing devices into a of the system to the user. A number of
adaptation and collaborative context context-dependent UIs for various types Allow the possibility of semantic knowledge base and uses this knowledge The right timing of the advice (send it prototypes will be constructed and tested
negotiations. The models enable support of interactive devices. The capabilities of reasoning about how to dynamically to provide context-tailored advice to immediately, or wait until the meeting is by user from both target groups (office
for multiple interaction modalities and for the resulting languages and tools are support users in accomplishing their motivate healthy behaviour. The over, or until the user stopped typing, etc.) workers and diabetes patients), following
multitude of devices, seamless context validated through their applications to activities challenges are (1) to obtain knowledge of Smarcos design methods and concepting
negotiations and UI adaptation various case studies relevant for the the user‟s context in an unobtrusive guidelines.
mechanisms. Moreover, the models act as project goals, e.g. application to model A number of tools have been developed in manner, (2) to calculate context-tailored
a support for developing runtime and generation of adapted UI im- WP3 to develop model-based specification advice and feedback on performance from
mechanisms for interconnected and plementation for applications that allow and exploit them at design and run-time. this sensed context, and (3) to present BENEFITS
migratory UIs of applications and services. users to get messages/notifications advice and feedback about the user‟s
The models are provided in semantic and regarding their health conditions. performance in several health domains in The final prototype provides a way to
machine understandable format to enable a user-friendly way. manufacture a holistic solution for healthy
rapid processing. The format of models BENEFITS lifestyle promotion and also demonstrate a
aim at W3C compatibility for facilitating HOW methodology for creating a user friendly
wide exploitation and impact for various The adoption of model-based approaches multiple-device system – an interusable
software industries. has various advantages: To overcome these three challenges, a system - for the consumer market.
Highlight important aspects to be system is devised that uses sensing devices
HOW considered by designers & developers that the user is already using: a mobile All prototypes will be tested by a small
when developing interactive applications phone, a computer, a television, a pill group of target users. Online questionnaires
Once the relevant model has been Provide precise documentation of the dispenser, an activity monitor. These will also be used to test the system‟s
identified (task, UI, context), the previous design choices devices are connected to one Smarcos Interusability via concept in a larger group of people.
in the area is started and extended to Allow designers in multi-device UI to system, where they share their Smart Interoperable Devices
better address the issues raised by obtain a small general vocabulary for Inter-usable User Interfaces information. This shared information is
multi-device environments with particular describing possible interactions and then then used to determine:
attention to the necessary aspects to