The human-centred design approach [1] , [2] (ISO, 1999) is today commonly used when designing end user applications. With ubiquitous computing applications, many properties of the applications are defined by the underlying infrastructures related to different applications. Focusing on the applications alone leaves many usability problems unsolved because the underlying technical infrastructures are often already fixed3. In MINAmI we will apply human-centred design approach in the design of the infrastructures such as the platform, tags and common usage patterns. This novel approach makes it possible to affect basic design decisions that may have effects on user acceptance and ethical issues regarding all the applications that will use the MINAmI Ambient Intelligence (AmI) infrastructure. A related innovation compared to other AmI research is that MINAmI is targeting a wide selection of AmI based applications in different application fields, and is developing technologies and solutions that can be used by several different applications and can tackle many societal problems (Figure 1)
Human-centred design approach (Figure 1)
Key numerous objects to be used for AmI are passive low-cost RFID tags (Figure 2). The contents of tags could be read by a mobile handset equipped with a RFID reader. MINAmI proposes new applications developments based on innovative developments made on MIMOSA platform for miniaturized RFID tag readers/writers, suitable for mobile handsets and novel developmentsin a micro-nano generic sensor platform, which exploits RFID technology for remote powering and telemetry, making possible to fabricate low-cost, wireless sensors to create a novel, intuitive user interface to AmI.
State-of-the-art in AmI technology and applications shows that main targets in terms of miniaturization and low power consumption are extremely challenging: a truly disappearing electronics[3] meaning physical volumes of the order of 10’s of mm3 and power consumption of the order of 10’s of mW. MINAmI is particularly adding to this challenges the ambitious target of wireless mobile-centered concept that will drive meso-scale low-cost wireless TAG and transceiver technology for wireless data acquisition with advanced storage capability that will:
be based on fully integrated solutions,
target cheap solutions (at or below 1$),
minimize power/energy dissipation (targeting power dissipation in the order of 100 μW, which will enable energy scavenging) and
integrate new micro/nano-technologies in real applications, which is the final goal of the project.
[1] Edwards, W. K., Bellotti, V., Dey, A. K. and Newman, M. W. Stuck in the Middle: The Challenges of User-Centered Design and Evaluation for Infrastructure. In Proceedings of CHI2003 (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, April 5-10, 2003). ACM Press, 2003, 297-304.
[2] ISO 13407:1999. Human-centred design processes for interactive systems. International standard. International Standardization Organization, Geneve, 1999.
[3] J. M. Rabaey, Ultra Low Power Design ? The Road to Disappearing Electronics, Invited Presentation, Sasimi 2004, Kanazawa, Japan, October 2004.
