Providing an Integrated User Experience of Networked Media, Devices, and Services through End-User Composition

Networked devices for the storage and rendering of digital media are rapidly becoming ubiquitous in homes throughout the industrialized world. Existing approaches to home media control will not suffice for the new capabilities offered by these digitally networked media devices. In particular, the piecemeal interaction provided by current devices, services, and applications will continue to engender frustration among users and will slow adoption of these technologies and the more sophisticated pervasive technologies that will surely follow them into the domestic environment. To address this challenge, we present OSCAR, an application that supports flexible and generic control of devices and services in near-future home media networks. It allows monitoring and manipulation of connections between devices, and allows users to construct reusable configurations to streamline frequently performed activities. A lab-based user study with 9 users of varied backgrounds showed that people could use OSCAR to configure and control a realistic and fully operational home media network, but that they struggled when constructing certain types of reusable configurations. The results of the study show that users were enthusiastic about adopting a system like OSCAR into their own media-related practices, but that further research and development is needed to make such systems truly useful.

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