DiamondHelp: Collaborative Help for Networked Home Products
The basic idea of DiamondHelp is to move the complex programming and customization features of new digitally-enhanced home products for heating, cooling, laundry, entertainment, etc., to a shared household DiamondHelp "station", which is connected to the appliances through the existing home electrical wiring
Background & Objective: Ordinary people already have great difficulty using the advanced features of digitally-enhanced household products, and the problem is getting worse as more features are continually being added. This usability problem cannot be solved using only the tiny displays and limited control buttons typically found on home appliances. However, using a home network to share a larger and more powerful display, we can provide home products with a new type of collaborative interface in which the product actively helps the user, especially with complex features that are only occasionally used.
Technical Discussion: The shared household DiamondHelp station could be either a dedicated unit, or a home PC, wireless tablet, etc. Other technology, such as wireless, infrared, etc., could be used in place of or in combination with power line control to implement the home network.
DiamondHelp provides a consistent interaction style across products through a unique combination of the conversational and direct manipulation interface paradigms. The top half of the screen is like a chat window between the user and DiamondHelp, which is the same for all products. The bottom half of the screen is a direct-manipulation interface to the product's state, which is different for each product. DiamondHelp uses Collagen to track task context and to manage the conversational part of the interface.
DiamondHelp is a mixed initiative system: it can provide detailed step-by-step instructions and demonstrations when appropriate, but also allows the user to do things by himself when he wants to. DiamondHelp also makes use of task context: it knows the user's goal at every point, either because the user explicitly stated it or via automatic goal recognition.
Publications:
| Technical Reports: | |
| Collaborative Help for Networked Home Products | |
Technology Area: Off the Desktop Interaction and Display
Modification Date: September 14, 2007