Mental Models in Smart
Homes
A Comparison of different User Interfaces
using the Wizard of Oz technique
 This
study was conducted by the project team of Embassi
at the Humboldt University Berlin between the summer of 2002 and spring
of 2003. The study investigates on the adequacy of possible interface
technologies for smart homes, being standard remote controls, a Graphical
User Interface (Touchscreen), an artificial person (Avatar) and an “empty
room”, controlled solely by speech.
To compare the proposed
interfaces the Wizard of Oz technique was used.
It is characteristic for the Wizard of Oz technique (WoZ), that the user
believes to interact with a machine while in reality a human operator
simulates part of the response, usually the complex task of understanding
and interpreting the user’s intention. Of particular interest was
the user’s Mental Model or her idea of how the smart home worked.
The picture gives an overview of the study.
Participants
The 126 participants, 70 women and 56 men were between 30 and 67 years
old and were paid 15 Euro for participation.
 Design
System interaction is conceptualized along two criteria: presentation
and control. Presentation refers to the way the artifact presents itself
to the user, or how the user sees the artifact respectively. Control refers
to the way the user can manipulate the artifact. Thus the following matrix
contains 6 conditions, 5 of which were compared:
Procedure
The study consists mainly of the interaction of the participants with
technology in a “living room of the future” and pre- and post-questionnaires.
After completion of a computer-questionnaire the participant was led into
the experimental room, in which he could get acquainted with the living
room and the technology in it, before he was asked to do three short increasingly
demanding tasks.
He was then walked back
to the first room to fill out the post experimental questionnaire and
later led to another room to describe to an imaginary following participant
in an interview that was recorded on tape how the devices in the room
could be used.
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