Domestic Hypermedia: - Folding Hyperspaces into Households

This paper analyses the use of media and material in private homes based on empirical studies in a project on designing interactive home environments. Material in homes with hypermedia characteristics includes photos, music, play-lists, as well as physical media such as newspapers, messages and letters. Based on the analyses we propose a Domestic Hypermedia infrastructure (DoHM) combining spatial, context-aware and physical hypermedia to support collaborative structuring and ubiquitous presentation of materials in private homes. With DoHM we propose establishing new relationship between digital and physical hyperspaces, folding hyperspaces into the physical space of the household. Thus we strive to combine the qualities of physical domestic materials and spaces with the flexibility and dynamics of digital hyperspaces. The DoHM infrastructure may be utilized on a variety of new ubiquitous home appliances called MediaWall, MediaTable, MediaTray and MediaPort, which are discussed in the paper.