Towards Smart Home Appliances

1. Towards Smart Home Appliances A review on Notes on Fridge Surfaces By Laurel Swan and Alex S. Taylor CHI 2005 – Late Breaking Results: Posters Presented by Rukmal Fernando

2. The background • The self-monitoring and reporting fridge • http://www.skidmore.edu/~ldg/future/intelligent-appls.html, Leo D. Geoffrion, circa December 2001 "Hello, this is Acme Appliance Service. I'm here to repair your refrigerator." "There must be some mistake. I didn't call for service, and my refrigerator is working fine." "No, your refrigerator called us. The compressor is failing and will likely break down next week. Its sensors detected the problem and contacted the manufacturer for warranty service."

3. The background, continued • Cool I/O – a Fridge that tracks its contents by scanning Barcodes • Joseph Kaye at MIT Media Lab, Summer ’97 • “We found that this user interface was entirely impractical, and massively inadequate for any consumer use. We expect that a fridge that knows what it contains will have to rely on an RFID-like tagging scheme.” • http://www.media.mit.edu/ci/papers/whitepaper/ci13.htm • Reported by Boston.com in 1999 too - http://graphics.boston.com/technology/packages/click/hometech/kitchen.shtml

4. And today…? • Anyone seen any of these in consumer use? • Froogle search for “smart OR intelligent refrigerator” brought up a few “smart” fridges… • But not the kind of smart that was envisioned 8 to 10 years ago Joseph Kaye: “We found that this user interface was entirely impractical, and massively inadequate for any consumer use.”

5. The paper • The importance of refrigerators as a hub • Shifting focus: from a truly smart appliance to a central and shared surface • Agrees with Faye’s conclusion • Disagrees on suppositions of role of an augmented fridge • Highlights need to study fridge surfaces • Conclusions applicable for other home-based interactive surfaces

6. What’s special about a fridge?

7. Example 1 - Aimee • Weekly schedule placed on fridge door • Most often used by the mother • During breakfast • Because of breakfast • Unavoidable presentation of information

8. Example 2 - Olivia Letters, notes, lists, invitations, train tickets, magnets

9. Olivia: Madness or method? • “Theoretical” order of surfaces • Top left for children’s schooling, family and household materials • Children have reign over lower regions • Dad has a little corner too

10. Working Areas • Surface or region used to support organization of activities • Items can move through different regions to signify states • E.g. Unaccepted invitation on “Working” area moves to “Display” area once accepted, serving as a reminder

11. Working Areas • Some information shared with other household information sources • E.g.: Confirmed invitation is noted on a household calendar or diary • Invitation displayed on fridge • Redundant or multiple ways of showing the same information? • One weakness: these relationships are not visible

12. The positioning of the refrigerator • Adjoining horizontal and vertical surfaces can be combined into something more than its sum • Fridge door towards kitchen table

13. Working vs. sentimental information

14. Working vs. sentimental information • The calligraphy that Nicola cannot put anywhere else • Other such miscellaneous items discovered in other studies • Items are added bit by bit over long time spans • Some are discarded early (e.g.: school trip notice) while others remain for years • What we see is a snapshot • Fridge surface is therefore an assemblage

15. Why the fridge? • Large, public surface on which practical, sentimental, historic, functional and playful material can be arranged in a number of ways • Why not a wall, door or a bulletin board? • Answer: Magnets! • Simplicity, informality, fluidity • Fine balance of persistence and reconfiguration • No damage to surface, very easy • Compatibility with fridge surfaces

16. Information placement as a social interaction • Order of the surfaces / regions can be contested • Items can move through regions over time • Recap: David attaches an event leaflet – to the wrong region! • Possibilities – Child attaches note from school (!) to ‘working area’ for parents to see and act on

17. Lessons learnt • Central location and frequent effortless use make a good display • Support informal interactions • Ease of adding or reorganizing information – virtual magnets are required • Providing of accountability to information Multiple views of shared information • Anything else that I have missed? 

18. Personal Observations • My parents’ fridge is bare! • Where I am staying… • Reminders • Important telephone numbers • Pens and pencils in a small holder • Vitamin chart • Holder for letters to be attended to • Etc…

19. Where I am staying…

20. The conclusion • Fridges help us to learn a lot about how people interact with displays • More lessons to learn from others like • Apple iPhone • Microsoft Surface (http://www.microsoft.com/surface) • Location, ease of use, informality seem to be important

21. Thank you! • Comments? • Questions? • Rants? • Demo of Microsoft Surface available 