The design methodology for studying smart but complex do-it-yourself experiences

1.Introduction

This article presents the do-it-yourself (DIY) research of smart experiences through three case studies: Home Control System [23], Music Creation Tool [26] and Life Story Creation [22]. The empirical research for constructing the proof of concept prototypes has been explained in previous papers, and the themes for the DIY-construction in terms of the user expectations are briefly reflected in the article [19]. This article, however, considers in depth the design methodology for DIY IE: how to choose the participants; what methods to use and how to study experiences in the context of use.

Kuznetsov and Paulos define do-it-yourself as a culture that aspires to explore, experiment and understand by doing things by oneself [21]. The technology-mediated DIY culture, which this article contemplates, is part of wider phenomena that involve e.g. the maker movement, hacker communities, prosumerism and digital fabrication. All of them involve communities that are mainly ad-hoc groupings drawn together by shared interests. The common determinator is that, within the ecologies, people create and share their work without gatekeepers or geographic restrictions [14]. The research presented in this article highlights the role of amateurs – even people with no computational skills – who eventually deploy and benefit from the DIY technologies: the elderly and those with disabilities.

The roots for the technology-driven and networked DIY culture can be associated with the DIY movement starting from the late 1980s. The earliest experiments were related to music creation activities, when easy availability of computers and MIDI made the production and recording of music accessible, both in terms of the tools and of not needing to learn the specialized skills of playing an instrument [27]. More recently, the integration of social computing, online sharing tools, and other HCI collaboration technologies has made it possible to adopt DIY cultures and practices more widely [9]. Thousands of DIY communities share or create their projects with technical and networked means; communities that focus on handicraft, everyday home improvement, guerrilla gardening, experimental music, citizen journalism, solving of social problems and amateur astronomy [14,21,24,31]. Such sites as YouTube, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, and Wikipedia have taught ordinary people how to contribute and collaborate online. Online DIY communities, such as Instructables, Dorkbot, Craftster, Ravelry, Etsy, Spoonflower, Crafster and Adafruit have encouraged single-subject enthusiasts to use computing in order to find the means for collaborating and sharing their work. Within these communities, users create and import their own content for others to share in the public virtual spaces of Web 2.0 and add value by commenting, recommending or tagging each other’s content [29].

When it comes to the sharing mechanisms of the Web, it has been stated that we have now advanced from merely creating static web pages (www) and sharing them by social networking (Web 2.0) towards the ubiquitous computing Web 3.0 [15]. Depending on the context, the concept of Web 3.0 varies between understanding it as the semantic web, the web of things or the web of services. In this article, the emphasis is on the latter connotation.

Consequently, the research presented in this article focuses on the supporting of specific services targeted for nominated ecologies; the aim has been to develop customizable technologies for the aged and people with severe paralysis. The foremost objective has been the building of platforms for constructing incremental, intelligent user-driven experiences that may be shared in the envisioned Web 3.0.

2.Background to the DIY in IE research context

Callaghan et al. have presented some broad alternatives for defining the set up for research and development of IE systems [5]. At one end are the autonomous learning and self-adaptable services of the environment, and at the other, the self-configuring services with which people may intimately and explicitly be involved in the programming of collectives of devices that they may also have defined themselves. This latter approach has been nominated as the context for the research presented in this article, although, as Callaghan et al. have remarked, it is a more laborious alternative for the people using the systems. It has, however, one important advantage: people will have more control over their technology-mediated environments.

At present, there are many commercial single-board computers and microcontrollers that provide the means for the physical combining and configuration of sensors and devices; platforms such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi and mbed. On these platforms, it is possible even for layman DIY enthusiasts, with some computational knowledge, to aggregate sensors and smart devices; to design combined mash-up systems and make self-created smart experiences. The connection of multiple applications to create a larger application is achieved by (open-source) middleware, which is considered to be a fundamental tool for the design and implementation of smart environment applications shared over a network [13].

As regarding the technical design philosophy for the construction process of DIY IE, Newman et al. [28] have earlier proposed an approach called recombinant computing. This dictates that computing environments may be created from the bottom up – by creating individual entities to be part of an elastic, ever-changing whole. This philosophy also determines that these entities can be designed and introduced with a thought that they might be used in many different ways and under different circumstances. The pervasive interactive programming (PiP) technique proposed by Chin et al. [6] also puts the user at the centre of the system’s programming experience by exchanging autonomous learning for explicit user-driven supervision. It offers non-technical users the possibility to configure and customize sets of coordinating pervasive devices without the need to employ conventional programming methods. Later, Chin et al. have also proposed a soft-appliance vision, which they have introduced for the purpose of an expedient DIY device ecosystem, but anticipated that there is a yet greater need to find a way of categorizing the social and technological relationships [7].

Bonino and Corno see the next step in IE research being achieved by driving the research with user needs [4]. Beckman et al. have anticipated that the end-user sensor installation mainly enhances users’ sense of control, but the concept also offers several other advantages: it reduces costs, accommodates diverse deployment environments, and increases users’ acceptance of the technology [3]. Cook et al. expect the approach to advocate a new focus for HCI: including the investigation of the mechanisms for supporting and enriching human socialization and interaction, and orienting the research toward community and cultural enhancement [8]. Understanding people, their personal backgrounds, their different levels of computational thinking and their felt experiences is an important qualification for accepted and acknowledged DIY IE [30]. This article advocates research in which people are allowed to take control of their personal, smart surroundings, and at the same time to lower their barrier to technology-mediated DIY creation activities.

3.Objectives

The principal motivator for the presented research in the three exemplifying case studies was the idea that our environments will gradually turn intelligent. The contextual methodology for the design and research was chosen to be the Ecological Approach to Smart Environments (EASE) [18], in which the theoretical foundation can be found from the ecological psychology. The methodology introduces modes for product, remote and immediate design with an objective to design complex systems through divergent perspectives. Two modes of the EASE approach were identified as feasible for the construction of the specific intelligent DIY experiences: 1) remote design mode, for creating an ontology-based creation and configuration system, and 2) immediate design mode, for creating smart experiences and applications mediated by the Internet. According to Keinonen [20], remote design creates conceptual, infrastructure, methodological, regulatory, competence or resource-related foundations upon which others may develop products or local practices. Immediate design refers to a mode of design characterized by its responsiveness to users’ immediate needs, intensive user participation, continuous incremental improvements, and the utilization of open do-it-yourself platforms (ibid.).

The remote design objective of the case studies was to build an underlying architecture that would be stable and compatible, yet flexible and anticipating. The immediate design objective was aimed at providing supporting DIY technologies that would be easily available, controllable and configurable. Another immediate design objective was to study the sharing mechanisms within the designated ecologies. The construction objectives of the EASE approach set the foundation also for the HCI studies. The first objective was to determine the specific ecologies, including the relevant social groups and the technological frame. Furthermore, it was not at all obvious how the communities should be approached: what were the suitable conventions and methods for engaging participants in research? The conventions employed were expected to deliver the design implications for technical prototypes, but an equally important objective was to study what meaningful experiences the technologies provoked. The eventual HCI objective was to define a methodological framework for designing DIY IE service concepts.

4.Overview of the case studies

4.1.Home Control System for an intelligent nursing ecology

The remote design research of the Home Control System was aimed at supporting elderly people in living more independently at home and in an intelligent nursing home [23]. The technical system was a proof-of-concept prototype that included a tool enabling the combination of networked objects of the environment (see Fig. 1). The focus was on controlling the illumination of the environment, the front door lock control, long-term follow-up of the activities (with possible notifications and alarms to an external system), and the use of spoken dialogue interaction to control parts of the system. The project was built on earlier research that acknowledged how the devices were placed within an environment, how the combinations of these devices were managed practically, and how these devices worked together [6,17,28,34].

Fig. 1.

Home Control System concept.

The first focus group co-design session with Pro-Am users – a group of nurses – was arranged in December 2010, and the second session in May 2011. The nurses were selected as co-design partners based on the early evaluations, according to which the elderly occupants, the end-users, would have had anxieties regarding the technologies introduced. The nurses provided care at the Villa Jussoila nursing home (in Rauma, Finland), as well as care for outpatients. The participants were aged 28–42, one (1) male and three (3) females in both evaluation sessions; two (2) of the participants attended both sessions. The participants were considered to be ideal co-design partners because of their domain knowledge and computational expertise: all the nurses were accustomed to the Wiktio W10 home care system, which was the existing IE technology platform at the Villa Jussoila nursing home at that time. The co-design sessions were arranged in the nursing home facilities. The final usability evaluation was carried out in early 2012; these consisted of nine (9) persons, four (4) males and five (5) females, aged 22–56. Three (3) of them were caretakers of the elderly or people with disabilities, and the rest were considered more as the relatives of end-users. The prototype tool was validated by usability studies in a demo room at VTT Technical Research Centre, Tampere, Finland.

4.2.Music Creation Tool for those with disabilities

The first research set up for the immediate design was identified from the music therapy environment for people with mild or moderate (Diagnosis ICD-10) intellectual learning disabilities [26]. The aim of the prototype was to allow these people to play music in a therapy context, with the long-term objective of creating an environment for sharing their creative work. The Music Creation Tool consisted of software and smart adjustable instruments, for which the inspiration came from the early digital DIY movement (from the late 1980s). The co-design sessions were carried out by the music therapist who fine-tuned the instruments and selected the musical templates for end-users with disabilities.

The Music Creation Tool was evaluated in three phases. The first contextual studies provided material for defining a suitable research framework. When the initial version of the prototype was ready, it was evaluated in a care home for the disabled at the Rinnekoti Foundation, Espoo, Finland. The evaluations were carried out in August 2010. The participants were the music therapist and his customers, aged 26–58, one (1) female and five (5) males. All of the interviewees knew each other beforehand and were accustomed to participating in music therapy sessions. The last evaluation phase was held between October and November 2010, at the same location; this time there were four (4) participants attending the sessions, aged 21–58; all males. The video observation period lasted for 1.5 weeks, in which time the music therapist was responsible for the music therapy context and recording of the sessions (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.

Video observations of the Music Creation Tool.

4.3.Life Story Creation service for seniors

The second research set up for the immediate design was the Life Story Creation case study that developed an easy DIY system for elderly people to create their personal retrospections [22]. The aim was to support meaningful activities that the elderly said they preferred in the early user studies, and to study technical means to support the tasks. The final prototype was a Web 2.0 service application that focused on content creation, and especially, the sharing of work (see Fig. 3). The HCI studies focused on the experience factors, and aimed at discovering design implications for constructing the sharing mechanism.

Fig. 3.

Life Story Creation application.

The initial user studies were carried out in September 2010 at an institution for senior citizens in Kuopio, Finland. The focus groups consisted of fifteen (15) persons; six (6) males and nine (9) females, with an average age of 70. The participants were seniors living independently, most of whom had rich leisure activities. One group was composed of casual writers, and three of expert writers. All the interviewees were familiar with information technology, using mobile phones and computers on a daily or weekly basis. Many of them were also acquainted with social media. The second user study for the Life Story Creation was carried out in November 2010 in Tampere, Finland, at a time when an raw version of the prototype was available. The participants were aged 55–69; four (4) females and one (1) male. All were senior citizens – four (4) retired and one (1) self-employed – and all were writers in the same activity group. Each of them was familiar with information technology; they used mobile phones and computers on a daily basis. Most were acquainted in some way with Web 2.0, by using e.g. Facebook, genealogy- and chat applications.

5.Methods and practices

Abowd and Mynatt were among the first to notice the task-centric evaluation techniques inadequate for studying ubiquitous computing [1]. Leonard-Barton (1995) has specified that, in technology research, the traditional elicitation methods are more adequate when both the technological possibilities and users are well known, but their adequacy decreases when less is known about either the technology to be used or who is to use it [25]. Apparently, this is the case when constructing DIY technologies that should be flexible and configurable by a divergent set of users. In such cases, Leonard suggests employing more “emphatic” qualitative and design-oriented methods, as these construct more appropriate information. Forlizzi and Battarbee have advocated design-oriented methods for designing interactive systems, especially when it is critical to understand the social and collaborative aspects of interaction and the user experience [11].

Consequently, the methods for studying the DIY ecologies were chosen to favour design-oriented and co-design approaches (see Table 1). The methods were supplemented with ethnography and user-centred methods. The co-design processes for facilitating the user research of DIY ecologies fell under the methodological frame of participatory design, which generally aims at democratizing design so that the people to be affected by the systems should also be able to participate and influence the design process [32].

The objective for defining the practices and methods was to come up with appropriate method sets that would be suitable for studying technology-mediated DIY concepts at large, by assessing their value for the specific ecology studies. In Table 1, the methods used are arranged in four categories: early elicitation methods, complementary design-oriented methods, co-design methods and methods for analysing the results.

6.Main findings

The main contribution of the HCI research was to provide design implications for the constructing of the proof-of-concept prototypes developed by a multidisciplinary research team. Those prototypes are explained in detail in articles [22,23,26]. This article, however, limits itself to three key HCI objectives. The first contribution is the definition of specific social ecologies and the characteristics of participants in the design-oriented research setup. The second contribution is the study of DIY experiences in the emerging technology context that focused particularly on the creating, configuring and sharing experiences, and the definition of new experiences that arose when DIY technologies were introduced to the social ecologies. The third contribution is the design framework that may be employed for constructing DIY IE, particularly when the focus of HCI research is on experience design.

Fig. 4.

Home Control System co-design ecology.

6.1.Ecologies and characteristics of the participants in co-design phases

The EASE approach has highlighted the importance of describing human ecologies with the development setup. The descriptions of human ecologies in the case studies are presented in Figs 4–6; they illustrate the relationship between participants and designer/facilitator.

The Home Control System research engaged nurses in the co-design process and end-users in the final evaluation of the system. All the nurses were considered to be Pro-Am users according to their level of computational thinking, but only one of them was considered to be a local, warm expert mediating the computational expertise within the ecology. All the participants in this ecology worked closely with the designer in the co-design phases (see Fig. 4).

The music therapist was the nominated co-design partner in the Music Creation Tool ecology: a domain professional, a Pro-Am in computational thinking, and a local, warm expert. The therapist worked closely with the designer on constructing the tool; otherwise, the novice end-users were studied through observations (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.

Music Creation Tool co-design ecology.

Fig. 6.

Life Story Creation co-design ecology.

In the Life Story Creation ecology, the teacher of the writing group was considered to be the local, warm Pro-Am expert of the group; however, it turned out that the design of the system benefited more from the involvement properties relating to the willingness to create and community orientation, which the amateur writers possessed. The amateur writers were in this way selected as the most suitable co-design partners instead of the Pro-Am expert (see Fig. 6). It should be noted that, in this case, the immediate design requirements also necessitated the designer to work in close cooperation with the ecology participants.

7.Conclusions

Leadbeater and Miller have listed a set of global reasons why research should focus on active DIY communities: the longer life span of the population, growing levels of education, the spread of social mobility as people develop distinctive lifestyles, changes in occupational patterns (the need to develop a second career) and consumers spending on leisure and services [24]. They go as far as to predict that Pro-Am communities will be the new R&D labs of the digital economy, but argue that it is the task of the public service institutions to equip users with tools and education for doing-things-by-themselves as well as providing safe spaces and environments in which they can network and learn. The research presented in this article contributed to this call by supporting the participation of those unlikely to be the first in joining DIY construction processes: elderly and those with disabilities.

The contribution of this article was to determine the ecology construction for the do-it-yourself intelligent environments by presenting three exemplifying case studies employing remote and immediate design strategies of the EASE approach. In this article, the design-oriented research has been described as the core methodology for engaging users in the construction process. The studies carefully defined the characteristics of users and illustrated Pro-Am experts, with local and warm orientation, as important co-design partners in research – but equally important inside the communities sharing their expertise and advice.

In an experience design research setup, the defining of human ecologies was of critical importance, because the collaboration with (and between) users exposed the experiences relating to creating, configuring and sharing. Based on a literary review, these experiences were defined as critical aspects during the DIY development processes, and they were confirmed as predominant, with varying importance depending on the case. Another important result of the study was the six new discovered DIY experiences. They were related to the physical and digital realms of the ecologies, the piecemeal construction of DIY and the need to define a conclusive experience when considering the technological ecology layer. The most intriguing aspect of these was the way each of them implied of new design challenges.

The limitations of the case studies are acknowledged as follows. The new knowledge of the article is based on the local understanding of certain studies that describe particular ecologies, and thus cannot be applied uncritically to other cases. The studies focused on particular community samples and concentrated on the nominated design-oriented approach. Also, the users in all the case studies were expected to invest considerable effort in understanding, co-designing and using the technologies within a limited time. A longitudinal study might have better verified how the DIY technologies would have been adapted, used and, particularly, how they would have evolved within the ecologies.

The greatest value of the remote and immediate design studies was the way they helped to build the proof-of-concept prototypes and identify future design opportunities. In future work, the information gained from the case studies will be implemented in the research of smart objects and products. Fortino et al. [12], for example, have proposed a promising approach for the development of smart objects and smart objects applications based on agents. This, however, necessitates that the set up for research moves towards the other alternative for the development of IE systems presented by Callaghan et al. [5]: the autonomous learning and self-adaptable services.