HCC: Medium: Collaborative Configuration: Supporting End-User Control of Complex Computing

该项目将开发允许用户相互帮助创建和维护复杂、普适计算和通信环境配置的技术。随着个人计算环境变得越来越复杂，不仅包括台式机和笔记本电脑，还包括移动电话、媒体设备、传感器等，配置任务的重要性和难度也在增加。特别是，对于最终用户来说，创建、理解和维护允许他们执行对他们重要的活动的硬件和软件配置变得具有挑战性。此外，随着时间的推移，这个问题只会变得更糟，因为计算环境会发展到包括计算机科学家预测的数百甚至数千种不同的设备和软件服务。本项目采用的方法源于这样一种观察，即即使每个用户可能有特定的设备、服务和偏好，使她很难找到与自己的特定需求相关的信息，但在某个地方经常存在其他用户，他们经历并解决了类似的问题。其他用户的知识无疑会给第一个用户带来很大的好处，但是现有的用于寻求帮助和修改配置的工具并不能使这种信息交换变得容易。因此，一个重要的目标是将每个用户与他所需要的知识相匹配，以便完成他所面临的配置任务，假设这些知识存在于具有类似系统的其他用户中。这个项目将解决许多挑战，包括：1)如何识别和提供“配置知识”，而不给拥有它的个人带来不必要的负担？2)如何向求助者提供信息，使他们能够以最小的努力和出错的可能性采取行动？3)如何将可能配置的大空间的复杂性简化到仅影响用户决策的维度？为了应对这些挑战，该项目将开发协作配置服务（CCS）——一种从特定系统的不同用户收集配置信息并将相似用户相互匹配以提供帮助的通用服务。通过一个反复的研究-构建-评估过程，研究将通过连续适应三个不同的用户群体来构建和完善CCS：环境信息设备（Chumby）的用户，基于开源软件的家庭媒体系统（MythTV）的用户，以及代表家庭媒体网络用户的“早期多数”的人。支持用户在配置和操作开放的、不断发展的普及计算环境方面获得控制权并获得帮助，将降低采用这些环境的障碍。这将给最终用户本身和公司带来好处，对这些公司来说，普及计算服务和组件的开放市场将为竞争和技术创新提供机会。

This project will develop techniques that will allow users to help each other create and maintain configurations of complex, pervasive computing and communication environments. As personal computing environments become ever more complex, growing to include not just desktop and laptop computers, but also mobile phones, media devices, sensors, and more, configuration tasks grow in importance and difficulty. In particular, it becomes challenging for end-users to create, understand, and maintain the hardware and software configurations that allow them to carry out the activities that matter to them. Moreover, this problem will only get worse with time as computing environments grow to include the hundreds or even thousands of different devices and software services that have been forecast by computer scientists. The approach taken in this project derives from the observation that, even as each user may have specific devices, services, and preferences that make it difficult for her to find information relevant to their particular needs, there frequently exists some other user, somewhere, who has experienced and solved a similar problem. This other user's knowledge would doubtless be of great benefit to the first user, but existing tools for seeking help and modifying configurations do not make it easy for such information exchange to take place. An important goal, then, is to match each user with the knowledge she needs in order to accomplish the configuration tasks facing her, on the assumption that such knowledge resides with some other user with a similar system. This project will address a number of challenges, including: 1) How can "configuration knowledge" be identified and made available without placing undue burden on the individuals who possess it? 2) How can help-seekers be presented with information in a way that allows them to act on it with minimal effort and likelihood of error? 3) How can the complexity of large spaces of possible configurations be reduced to only the dimensions that matter for users' decision-making? In order to address these challenges, this project will develop the Collaborative Configuration Service (CCS) - a general service that collects configuration information from various users of a particular system and matches similar users with each other for the purpose of providing help. Through an iterative study-build-evaluate process, research will construct and refine CCS by adapting it successively to three different user communities: users of an ambient information device (Chumby), users of an open source software-based home media system (MythTV), and people representing the "early majority" of home media networking users. Supporting users to gain control and receive help with the configuration and operation of open, evolving pervasive computing environments will lower the barrier to the adoption of those environments. This will lead to benefits to both the end-users themselves and to the companies for whom an open marketplace for pervasive computing services and components will present opportunities for competition and technological innovation.