Ambient intelligence research in HomeLab : engineering the user experience

As technologies in the area of storage, connectivity and displays evolve rapidly and business developments point to the direction of the experience economy, the vision of Ambient Intelligence is positioning human needs central to technology development. This chapter describes concerted research efforts surrounding the HomeLab, a special research instrument that supports scientific investigations of the interaction between humans and technology. Such investigations reach beyond traditional usability and technology acceptance, aiming to characterize the nature of user experiences, measuring them and designing them. Starting from a historical view upon the vision of Ambient Intelligence, this chapter presents the HomeLab, the rationale for its set-up and three related studies that were conducted within it. These studies have focused on technology use at home for leisure purposes; more specifically they have explored the experience of immersion from displays that extend beyond screen boundaries to encompass the lighting in a room, and the experience of social presence and connectedness with remote friends and family as they result from peripheral awareness displays.