Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Over time we select diverse collections of household things. These “things” are important since we rely on them to make our everyday lives purposeful and meaningful. The diverse belongings are integral to our daily routines and practices. They often go beyond their intended design to be adapted to serve new purposes like a fruit bowl near the door for keys, an armchair to place your purse, a mirror with a grocery list tucked into the frame. These belongings are vital to coordinating, organizing, and sharing in our home. They also find personal, historical and habitual uses that are not designed for efficiency or convenience. It is important that these belongings are simple, flexible, and easily appropriated by us for new uses to serve our precise, unique needs and desires. Given the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), digital technologies are increasingly becoming a part of our homes. However, the complexity, rigid functionality, and device-like designs of these technologies strongly limit our ability to customize and adapt them to fit our needs.

This research investigates the design of household objects with embedded technologies and connectivity made of everyday materials. These are designed to leverage human intelligence through everyday routines and practices and to combine digital with non-digital functionality. For example, the pale yellow ceramic bowl next to your door tilted left on its own when you put your keys in it and remains that way signaling you do not have your keys in hand. While the smaller blue bowl on the kitchen counter that held your phone has leveled itself showing you removed the phone and put it in your bag. The wooden clock in the hallway gently chimes signaling that your neighbor has left her house and is on her way over to walk your children to school together. Thankfully, the weave of your favourite basket holding umbrellas is now more open signaling no rain today! These everyday things are simple, intelligible forms requiring no interface while remaining open to potential alternative digital and non-digital uses. This approach provides resourcefulness through domestic technology that beneficially leverages human practices.

This research develops a technical platform of things with embedded technologies and networking. We will use this platform to investigate mulitple case study applications of different user-driven applications in the home. Each case study examines the balance and relationships between digital and non-digital functionality, the challenges of a limited user interface and non-traditional interactions, and the need for transparency and privacy when designing connected technologies for homes. The research will advance theory, create design exemplars, extend digital fabrication in HCI research, and provide a toolkit for connected everyday things. Findings will lead to greater integration and quality of user adoption, and long-term sustainable use.