Application of Affordance Factors for User-Centered Smart Homes: A Case Study Approach

Abstract

Smart homes improve quality of life by providing various services based on information and communication technologies. However, smart home systems are complicated and user interfaces for the interaction between smart home and user are often not user-friendly, causing potential difficulties and inconvenience for the user. Therefore, in order for smart homes to become user-centered, usability needs to be improved. This study aims to present guidelines for improving the usability of smart homes based on the concept of affordance, which is highly meaningful in user-centered design. To do this, firstly, the affordance factors that could be applied to improve the usability of active devices and user interfaces in smart homes were extracted, secondly, a case study was conducted to analyze the application of affordance factors, focusing on active devices (e.g., control devices and smart appliances) and user interfaces that directly interact with users in smart homes. Lastly, guidelines on the application of affordance factors were presented by combining case analysis results with relevant guidelines. Active devices and user interfaces should provide users with appropriate cognitive, physical, functional, and sensory affordances so that users can use the smart home services easily and conveniently.

A Framework of Smart-Home Service for Elderly’s Biophilic Experience

“…Previous studies related to smart homes for the elderly underlined self-sustaining and sustainable service environments, such as home automation and the convergence of home-appliance-based comprehensive living convenience, health care, resident management, and self-supporting residential systems [59][60][61]. In a situation where most smart-home environments consist of device-device and device-occupant interaction services, which centers on home appliances and individual devices, the interaction method of smart devices is related to the input/output method of information, thereby affecting the usability of the elderly [62]. This is true among various groups and is also closely related to spatial characteristics such as the shape and size of the devices, for example, how the devices are installed, etc.…”

“…Non-contact Smart-home services consist of sensors, controllers, actuators, displays, and other smart devices and systems as a network, enabling the localization and remote control of domestic environments as well as automation [62,66]. The home network gathers and stores data transmitted from the input device through the home gateway or platform and converts it into a single protocol to deliver it to the output device [67,68].…”

“…All services Resident sensor LiDAR (Light detection and range) sensor (location, movement, activity, behavior) [78,89] Multimodal sensor (voice, touch, gesture, etc.) [62,82] Physiological sensor (sleep, pulse, etc.) [60,78,82] Smart devices and system PC/mobile devices [60,62] Table 6.…”

“…[62,82] Physiological sensor (sleep, pulse, etc.) [60,78,82] Smart devices and system PC/mobile devices [60,62] Table 6. Cont.…”

“…Nature-immersed contents VR/AR display Wearable devices (HMD, EGD, etc.) [73,85] Screen display (FogScreen, wall display, invisible display) [83,86] Smart devices and system PC/mobile devices [60,62] Haptic actuator [85,101] Collaboration system with nature Smart devices and system Smart kitchen and toilet [82,91] Natural energy reproduction system (NERS) 1 [91,102] Rainwater recycling system (RRS) 2 [79,81] 1, 2 Most of the paper sources for the elements of smart-home devices were literature review papers. The terms of devices were attuned to maintain consistent terminology, and these were newly established in this study.…”