Programming your video recorder while sitting on the train, regulating your air conditioning in order to reach the desired temperature on your way home, checking from your home whether your grandparents’ oven is switched off and their door is shut; all this is possible nowadays. But because of the complicated and non-uniform handling of current devices, radio control of home appliances and entertainment electronics is only accessible for experts.
The EU-project i2home will develop a universal, easily operated control device that will make this useful technology accessible for everybody. In this context i2home focuses on old and disabled people who are, in general, not very familiar with modern technology or have difficulties handling modern devices because of their particular impairment. This user group could profit from these technical possibilities.
The so-called remote console of i2home can be adapted flexibly and individually to the respective abilities and capacities of the user.
Thereby alternative user interfaces with different functional range will be provided. In addition, both different input modalities such as speech, Braille keyboard (for blind people) and physical input with a touch screen, as well as variable output modalities such as speech and graphical or tactile output (e.g. Braille display) are planned. Thus the operation of devices can be adapted to be flexible and dynamic to the user’s changing abilities. Given the possibility to save a set of user profiles, each family member can use his or her individual operator interface.
In addition to the control unit an intelligent assistant system will be provided which helps the user to plan and perform daily duties.
For example, a speech based reminder function will be integrated to remind people with memory difficulties to take their medicine on a day-to-day basis. The i2home system will be available in several European languages such as German, English, Czech, Spanish, Swedish and Portuguese.
The possibility to adapt the appliance dynamically to the user’s abilities allows old and permanently ill people to lead an independent and self-determined life in their own home and enables them to participate actively in our modern information society. This corresponds to the EU programme "eInclusion" which supports i2home.
User interfaces are often developed without sufficiently integrating the end user into the development process. I2home emphasizes the importance of a user centred development: Right from the start and during the whole project duration, end users actively take part in the project by means of a four-phase model. In the first phase, the needs of the participants are assessed. After implementing the results of the first phase, user tests will be executed and, in the final phase, the system will be evaluated.
In order to communicate between the i2home control devices and the various home appliances, the ANSI-Standard ISO/IEC 24752 (in progress) will be implemented. Thereby expensive solutions can be avoided. In fact a growing number of mainstream products are available at low prices, which can be accessed with the i2home system.
The i2home project consortium consists of nine partners from five countries. The Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague will investigate in what way older people can benefit from the i2home system and how adequate user interfaces can be created for this particular user group. The gerontological institute INGEMA (San Sebastián, Spain) will hold analogical user tests with Alzheimer patients. The requirements and needs of cognitive impaired people will be explored by the Swedish institute for disabled people Hjälpmedelsinstitutet (Stockholm, Sweden), while the SBS C-LAB (Paderborn, Germany) will analyze what intuitive user interfaces for people with sensory and physical impairments should look like.
The technical implementation of the results of this user-centred demand analysis will be carried out by the companies and research institutions Meticube (Coimbra, Portugal), VicomTech (San Sebastián, Spain), Access Technologies Group (Pfullingen, Germany), Zentrum für Graphische Datenverarbeitung ZGDV e.V.(Computer Graphics Center, Darmstadt, Germany) and DFKI (German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence GmbH, Saarbrücken, Germany).
The project runs from 01.09.2006 to 31.08.2009 with a budget of 4.9 Million Euros. The project is coordinated by the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence GmbH (DFKI) in Saarbrücken.
Contact
Dr. Jan Alexandersson
German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3, Geb. 3.2
D-66123 Saarbrücken
Tel: +49 681 302 5347
Email: Jan.Alexandersson@dfki.de
Internet: www.i2home.org