The ACube Experience

A retrospective analysis of an Ambient Assisted-Living project

Luca Sabatucci

The ACube Mission

• The project aimed at developing an advanced, generic monitoring infrastructure for Ambient Assisted Living,

• To realize a highly developed smart environment as a support to medical and assistance staff

• Exploiting low energy consumption wireless networks of sensors and actuators.

Strategy

• Minimal Advance in the Technology– The strength must be in the integration

• “the result will be more than the sum of parts”– Services must represent a real value for users

The Analysis of Requirements

• The core problem is not technological• Central role of People– Identify real needs and integrate them into the design.– Users must easily push their preferences into the

system execution.• AAL and Society– Law compliance: effects of existing laws and new laws

trying to regulate this new reality– Adaptability to the evolution of the context (needs and

organization changes).

Stakeholders

• The analysis team (Tropos + UCD)• The technical team (7 research groups)• Social Residence Managers• Social Workers (caregivers, nurses, doctors)• Politicians

Expectations and Risks

• Research Groups had own purposes– Publications, Patents

• Local politicians wanted a ROI in terms of publicity

• Managers wanted to improve services and save money

• What about Caregivers? What did primary users actually want?

Discovering Needs

If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.

Henry Ford

User-Centred Design Discipline

• To shape the form, the function and the behavior of interactive products, creating user experience

• Understanding real people in the contexts where they live and work

• Integrate user studies and technological development – by adopting creative and analytical methods, – exploiting cultural values (i.e. empathy, intuitions,

subjectivity, synthesis, etc.)

User Study

• Business Golden Rule: If you want a user to understand your product, you must first understand the user.

• UCD seeks answers to:– What is important to users– The tasks users do, how frequently, and in what order– The users’ work environment– The users’ problems and constraints– Users’ expectations in terms of functionality– Output required & in what form– How can the design of this ‘product’ facilitate users’

cognitive processes?

Methods

Participatory Design

• Requirements are not well-defined entities but should be collaboratively negotiated during the whole design life-cycle

• Requirements are constructions produced by a number of actors (users, analysts, developers , designers) each acting in specific context

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Strengths and Limits of UCD

Strengths• Engagement of users• Extracting Implicit

Knowledge• Concrete representation of

the domain• Stories prioritize

requirements

Limits• Does not support

traceability• Does not support

abstraction• Coverage problem

The Tropos MethodologyAn Overview

• Engineering Approach• Goal-oriented design process, • The focus is on capturing intentional and

strategic dependencies among actors of a domain.

• Five phases: early/later requirements, architecture, implementation and deployment.

Giunchiglia et al. 2003. The Tropos Software Development Methodology: Processes, Models and Diagrams. In Agent-Oriented Software Engineering III, Springer

Tropos and UCD: a Promising Synergy

• Purpose:– synergy without reducing advantages

• Enablers:– Ground on information about people– Similar “High Level” objectives (requirements)– Similar Language (goal/need, actor/persona)– Similar methodological approach (data exploration,

filtering)

The Process• The design process is co-

evolutionary• concept design, technology

development and user research are carried out in parallel

• they progressively converge by continuously comparing results and retuning the process

• The process grounds on– Setting a common problem space– Sharing a vision on the solution– Evaluate from different perspectives

Maria is in RSA since 3 months and she never tried to escape.After lunch, she leaves the group and decides to go back her room, in the second floor. She goes up the stairs and she falls down.Maria is still conscious and asks for caregivers help. Sabrina, full time OSS, hears Maria’s call and reaches her in the stairs…

The ACube

Instance

Sabatucci et al. "Epistemic Analysis" 18

ACube – some lessons learnt

• The Role of Humans and Communications• Interpretation• The Tacit Knowledge Dimension• Handling Viewpoints

Sabatucci et al. "Epistemic Analysis" 19

ACube in a nutshell - Story 1Interpretation

• Example of “diario” and “consegna”• Frequent validations is a properly instrument

for the early discovering of ambiguities and errors.

• The analysis improves by maintaining data, as long as possible, in the same format in which they arrive from the domain

Sabatucci et al. "Epistemic Analysis" 20

ACube in a nutshell – Story 2Do not ask needs

• Ask preferences and “dreams”• Lacking a way for representing users answers,

important information may being forgotten• Importance of tracing, organizing and taking in

account information that have not a clear-cut relevance at the moment of the interview.

Sabatucci et al. "Epistemic Analysis" 21

ACube in a nutshell – Story 3Redundancy

• Example of “night as a critical moment”• Different viewpoints are sometimes difficult to

conciliate• The importance of exploring motivations

behind different perspectives over the domain

Open Challenges and Future Directions

Challenge 1 – Multi-Disciplinary

Challenge 2 – Methodological Integration

• Different Concepts• Different instruments to approach the

problem• Example of Ambiguity: a different perspective

Challenge 3 – Evaluation

• Process based on many quick iterations • Frequent verifications and prototypes• Solutions and system specifications are

collaboratively negotiated

Challenge 4 – System Evolution