Technological advances have improved the functionality of smart home systems and services, enabling consumers to automate some of in-home tasks, enhance their safety and security, and save energy. Despite improved functionality, user adoption of many available products and services remains low. This phenomenon suggests that smart home technologies may not be meeting the needs of potential users. Furthermore, continued technological advancement combined with changes in people’s lifestyle and attitudes towards in-home technologies require updated investigations to gain a clear view of current user needs. This study presents findings from a set of semi-structured interviews and card-sorting activities with eleven participants from different socio-demographic backgrounds, with a focus on describing ten challenges commonly experienced in the home environment. Possible technological solutions are discussed from the existing unmet needs within the scope of smart and connected homes.
System Engineering education typically includes content to help students learn to design and engineer large, complex systems in a structured way. In this paper, we describe the outcomes of introducing a human-centered design tool, the Inspiration Design Toolkit (IDT), to encourage students to think non-linearly. The IDT is an educational resource consisting of a deck of illustrated cards that contain provocative questions, reflection messages and icons, applicative examples, and key takeaways on microlearning units. The aim of the IDT is to improve the participants’ learning experience and course engagement, increase opportunities for them to interact with their peers and teaching team, enable them to practice and reinforce the concepts through the creation of their own IDT cards, and share the cards in the discussion to increase learners’ engagement with course material and peers. We designed the IDT for an MIT online course on System Thinking. We collected, analyzed, and synthesized qualitative and quantitative feedback from 171 course participants. Our findings suggest that IDT provides learners with a digital asset that allows them to reinforce and recall the course takeaways, and apply them to other contexts. For future research, we want to understand how learners like and use IDT through demographic differences and preferred self-identified learning styles. We discuss how these findings may help educators consider critical design principles and for creating a digital self-learning toolkit connected to the course content and increasing its content adaptability.
As the caregiver ratio declines, technology will play an increasingly important role in supporting formal and informal caregivers. This presentation will report on the particular effects that frontier technologies may have on various tasks associated with caregiving, including assisting with basic Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs). The expert panel predicted that different technologies and new products will have varied effects on caregiving tasks, and that some tasks may be more impacted than others. Some of the key opportunities and barriers to integrating technologies into various tasks of caregiving will be discussed.
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