Intelligibility Required: How to Make Us Look Smart Again
ABSTRACT
The vision of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) aims to integrate
computing into our everyday environments. Such smart,
context-aware environments have been shown to provide users
with powerful services. However, because these systems tend to
act without explicitly involving the user, users might be
surprised as to why their environment behaves in a certain
way. Moreover, context-aware systems will sometimes make
mistakes because of the inevitable incompleteness of context
information.
These issues may cause users to feel frustrated or out of
control while interacting with a ubicomp environment. In order
to make ubicomp environments safe, understandable and usable
for users, previous research has suggested that these systems
should provide intelligibility and control. An intelligible
system can present to its users what it knows and why, and
what it is doing with that information. This allows users to
understand why the system behaves in a certain way.
Additionally, a controllable system not only allows users to
smoothly interact with the system, but also allows them to
intervene when the system makes a mistake.
In this keynote talk, we identify several design
considerations for supporting intelligibility and control in
ubicomp environments. We show these considerations are also
applicable and necessary beyond ubicomp. Based on these
dimensions, we propose a design space for interaction
techniques that provide intelligibility and control. We
position examples of existing systems in this design space and
show how it can be used to explore design alternatives.
Karin CONINX, PhD, Professor
Karin Coninx is full professor at Hasselt University, Belgium.
She obtained a PhD in sciences, computer science after a study
of Human-Computer interaction (HCI) in immersive virtual
environments. Karin Coninx is leading the Human-Computer
Interaction Group of the Expertise Centre for Digital Media,
at Hasselt University. Her research interests include
(multimodal) interaction in virtual environments,
rehabilitation robotics, serious games, mobile and
context-sensitive systems, interactive (ubicomp) work spaces
and user-centred development methodologies. Karin Coninx has
co-authored more than 275 international publications.
She coordinated regional and international project consortia
for basic and applied research.
Being the initiator of the master on Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) at UHasselt, Karin Coninx teaches several
courses on computer science and specific HCI subjects.
She also takes responsibility in the management board of EDM,
as Principal Investigator in iMinds, as Vice-Dean of the
Faculty of Sciences and Director of the Doctoral School for
Sciences and Technology.
Karin Coninx is co-founder of the spin-off TinkerTouch that
was established in 2010.
