Homework: Shaping Future User Centred Domestic Infrastructures

全球有超过3亿人有宽带连接到互联网，在其中许多家庭中，家庭网络不仅用于允许多台计算机共享到互联网的连接，还用于实现媒体共享、游戏和其他新应用程序。用户越来越希望通过共享基础设施将便携式数字设备集成到这些网络中，包括移动电话、PDA、网络摄像头和音频设备。然而，尽管对家庭网络的需求迅速增长，但这些技术对人们来说仍然非常难以安装、管理和使用。市场报告显示了问题的严重程度：家庭网络设备是目前退货最多的消费电子产品，退货率为20%-30%。这些设备被拒绝并不是因为它们在技术层面上失败了，而是因为它们迫使用户成为不愿意(和没有接受过培训)的网络管理员才能使用它们。采用和使用家庭网络技术所固有的困难正在迅速成为通信、医疗保健和娱乐领域部署下一代应用程序的关键障碍。其中一个原因是，当前的互联网协议和架构套件已经迁移到家庭，很少或根本没有反映它们的适当性。最初的互联网设计选择是在一个训练有素、值得信赖和积极进取的管理员组成的世界中做出的，他们的任务是维护网络，这种情况在家庭中是不存在的。最终的结果是，家庭的性质与放置在其中的数字基础设施之间存在不匹配。当前以技术为中心的基础设施模型与用户理解其家庭网络的方式没有共鸣。这一建议建立在广泛的实证研究基础上，这些研究绘制了当前网络技术与过去四年英国和美国为重塑国内基础设施而采取的国内环境需求之间的不匹配情况。这需要那些设计“最终用户”技术和交互的人和那些寻求实现未来数字基础设施的人之间的跨学科合作，以便让用户能够更好地控制和拥有他们家中的网络。在这项建议中，我们将研究如何创建全新的家庭网络体系结构，通过考虑人和技术的因素来反映家庭的社会技术性质。我们将探索可能牺牲可伸缩性而支持可安装性、可演化性和可维护性的网络体系结构。为了做到这一点，我们将在项目期间与英国和美国的一系列合作伙伴密切合作。

Over 300 million people worldwide have broadband connections to the Internet, and in many of these households an in-home network is used not only to allow multiple computers to share the connection to the Internet, but also to enable media sharing, gaming, and other new applications. Users increasingly wish to integrate portable digital devices into these networks including mobile phones, PDAs, web cameras and audio devices through a shared infrastructure. However, despite the rapid uptake in demand for home networking, these technologies remain extraordinarily difficult for people to install, manage, and use. Market reports give a sense of the scale of the problem: home networking equipment is currently the most returned consumer electronics item, with return rates of 20-30%. These devices are being rejected not because they fail on a technical level, but because they force their users to become unwilling (and untrained) network administrators in order to use them.The difficulties inherent in adopting and using home networking technology are rapidly becoming a key roadblock to the deployment of next-generation applications in communication, healthcare, and entertainment. One reason for this is that the current suite of Internet protocols and architectures has migrated to the home with little or no reflection of their appropriateness. The original design choices of the Internet were made in a world of highly trained, trusted, and motivated administrators tasked with the upkeep of the network, a situation that does not exist in the home. The net result is a mismatch between the nature of the home and the digital infrastructure placed within it. The currrent technology-centric models of the infrastructure have no resonance with the understanding employed by users to make sense of their home networks. This proposal builds upon extensive empirical studies charting the mismatch between current networking technology and the needs of the domestic setting undertaken both in the UK and the US over the last four years to reinvent the domestic infrastructure. This requires an interdisciplinary partnership between those who design 'end user' technology and interaction, and those who seek to realise future digital infrastructures in order to allow users greater control and ownership of the networks in their homes.Within this proposal we will investigate the creation of entirely new domestic network architectures that reflect the sociotechnical nature of the home by taking into account both human and technical considerations. We will explore network architectures that might sacrifice scalability in favour of installability, evolvability, and maintainability. In order to do so we will work closely with a range of partner homes in the UK and the US for the duration of the project.