EUD4SH: A EUD Model for the Smart Home

Abstract

The increasing availability of low-cost smart devices is bringing them to be used more and more in the smart home. However, the development of a smart home environment requires to take into account several aspects. First of all, designers must consider the end user (namely the person that actually uses the smart home), and not only the technology, at the center of any intervention. Another important aspect is the interaction between the smart home and the appliances that are already deployed in the same smart environment. Moreover, most of smart home solutions are static and do not allow end users to customize them according to their real needs and preferences. Finally, not all end users may possess the necessary knowledge and skills to customize a smart home, but someone else, such as an adult child or a caregiver, may be called on to carry out this task for them. In this paper, we analyze all these aspects that can influence the development and evolution of a smart home. We then propose a model supporting developers and software engineers to deploy and evaluate a smart home solution that adopts end-user development techniques. It is based on the International Classification of Functioning scale, which is used to characterize the person that is mainly going to live in the smart home and define a solution suitable to his/her needs.