Abstract |
The concept of Intelligent Environments (IEs) is a well-established area of
research, which presents a paradigm shift in the way we view and interact with
technology. IEs, leveraging technologies such as Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and
Ubiquitous Computing (ubicomp), transform the traditional ways of computing
from passive, device-oriented, reactive systems to proactive, context-aware, and
adaptive environments. This comes as a result of technology’s rapid advancements,
which have gradually become widespread, with more and more people adopting
solutions that revolutionize their living and working spaces in their everyday lives.
Due to the increasing interest in this field, the need for methods that can be
used in order to design such environments has significantly grown, with multi-
ple approaches proposed in recent years. Various systematic and methodological
design approaches have been proposed, creating the need for proper tools that
consolidate the support of the various stages of IEs’ design process into a cohesive
manner.
Towards this direction, the present thesis proposes the ‘AmI Prototyper’, a
web-based platform consisting of a set of tools that support the design, prototyp-
ing, evaluation and testing of applications created for IEs. At design time, the
Environment Definition Tool is used to create the environment and its contained
devices; it manages the devices’ position in the environment through a 2D view
UI. Next, for each device, a Device States Editor is employed in order to set its
potential states (e.g., for a display, which mockup should be shown and which
interactions may be supported). Lastly, the Scenario Prototyping Editor enables
the definition of scenarios in written form at first, and then through an interactive
graph-based Finite State Machine (FSM) interface, the user can implement the
prototype that incarnates the scenario functionality.
At runtime, the companion mobile controller, following the Wizard of Oz
paradigm, facilitates the prototype-driven demonstration of a specific behavior in
an existing environment, or in a virtual simulation of one, by managing the evalu-
ation of specific applications for an environment through the Evaluation Manager.
It also oversees the execution and gathering of insights of these evaluations using
the Execution Manager tool. Alongside, a number of complementary tools and
features (e.g., Device Discovery and Pairing, Live Annotations) facilitate human
factors experts in conducting their evaluation.
In conclusion, this thesis introduces an ecosystem of tools and showcases how
the different phases of the IE design process (e.g., prototyping, evaluation, testing)
can be supported through their use. Through this robust platform, designers and
developers are empowered to iterate, refine, and validate interactive environments,
while ensuring optimal functionality and user experience.
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