HCC: Conceptualizing Interoperability Problem Solving in the Networked Home

由于通信、媒体和存储设备的普及和价格实惠，家庭无处不在计算的时代已经到来。今天，家庭可能会配备宽带路由器、无线接入点、IP电话、媒体中心PC、网络附加存储(NAS)、数字录像机、音乐播放器和能够上网的游戏机。然而，这种曾经希望既隐形又无缝的泛在计算已经露出了它的缝隙。今天的技术不仅没有让生活变得简单和容易，反而往往让生活变得更加复杂。人们希望设备能轻松、直观地工作，并能很好地配合使用。相反，许多消费者在晚上和周末花时间连接和配置笔记本电脑、台式机、无线网络、家庭影院系统和其他设备，这些设备承诺提供新的令人兴奋的功能。这里提出的研究旨在描述故障的特征，并开发技术解决方案，简化个人如何将联网数字设备整合到他们的家庭和数字生活方式中。现场工作将为联网设备的用户确定故障和解决方法。实地研究结果将阐明对情景推荐系统的一系列要求，该系统将推荐简化家庭中联网设备的采用和使用的方法。关注与媒体设备的互操作性可能被认为是高风险，因为这些设备的最终用户采用率较低，可能会很难找到能够参与研究的个人。解决网络互操作性的另一个复杂问题是，这些类型的问题通常会导致家庭网络无法运行。因此，一些常见的寻求帮助的方法，如搜索互联网，可能并不实用。这项拟议的研究的智力价值有三个方面。提出的研究将开发一种新的方法(问题解决探索法)来克服研究家庭网络的方法论问题。这项研究将产生用户目前使用的互操作性问题和解决方法的情景类型学。最后，这些结果将被用来开发一个原型互操作助手，该助手识别用户-S家庭网络中出现的概念性问题。这项研究的结果将产生几个更广泛的影响。直接影响的是数百万试图在家庭中采用越来越多的联网设备的用户。开发的基础设施将通过确定和推荐最有效的解决方案来减少解决复杂互操作性问题的开销。研究结果为数字家庭中解决网络设备互操作的设备和服务的设计提供了依据。因此，这更新了在家庭中实现更无缝计算环境的承诺。

The era of ubiquitous computing in the home is here, thanks to the popularity and affordability of communications, media, and storage devices. Today a home might be equipped with a broadband router, wireless access point, IP telephone, media center PC, networked attached storage (NAS), digital video recorder, music players, and game consoles capable of Internet play. However, this kind of ubiquitous computing, once hoped to be both invisible and seamless, is already showing its seams. Rather than making life simple and easy, today's technology often makes life more complex. People expect devices to work easily, intuitively, and to play nicely together. Instead, many consumers devote evenings and weekends to the overhead of connecting and configuring laptops, desktops, wireless networks, home theater systems, and other devices that promise new and exciting capabilities.The research proposed here seeks to characterize the breakdowns and develop technical solutions that simplify how individuals incorporate networked digital devices into their homes and digital lifestyle. Fieldwork will identify breakdowns and solution methods for users of networked devices. The field study findings will articulate a set of requirements for a contextual recommendation system that will recommend approaches that simplify adoption and use of networked devices in the home. Focusing on interoperability with media devices could be considered high risk because the low rates of end-user adoption for these devices may make it difficult to find individuals who can participate in the research. An additional complication when addressing network interoperability is that these types of problems can often result in the home network being non-operational. Thus some common approaches for getting help, like searching the Internet, may not be not practical.The intellectual merit of the proposed research is three fold. The proposed research will develop a new method (problem solving probes) to overcome methodological problems of studying the home network. The research will result in a situated typology of interoperability problems and solution approaches that users currently employ. Lastly, the results will be used to develop a prototype interoperability assistant that identifies where conceptual problems arise in a user?s home network. The results of the research will have several broader impacts. The direct impacts are for the millions of users who are attempting to adopt a growing number of networked devices for the home. The infrastructure developed will reduce the overhead of resolving complex interoperability problems by identifying and recommending the most effective solutions. The results inform the design of devices and services aimed at solving network device interoperability in the digital home. Thus, this renews the promise of a more seamless computing environment in the home.