Special issue on interacting with technologies in household environments

The history of studying homes and technologies is well established, going back to the early impact of infrastructure technologies such as electrification and plumbing. Since the ‘information age’ came upon us, homes have been invaded by information and communication technologies of various sorts and the impact of these has been examined from various perspectives. The early twenty-first century is a good time to take another look at the household domain as we are seeing such a dramatic change in technologies and their impact on households and homes. The papers in this special issue collectively provide an excellent review of the current state of the art in the analysis and design of household technologies and how we have arrived here. The papers were invited following a workshop held in Aarhus in March 2001 jointly sponsored by IFIP working groups 9.3 (Home Oriented Information technology, HOIT) and 13.2 (Methodology for Interactive Systems Design). This followed a track at the 2000 HOIT conference on interacting with home technologies. The theme for the conference was methodologies for designing home-oriented (or household) technologies. This is a new and emerging area since almost all consideration of human–computer interaction and cognitive ergonomics to date has dealt with work situations. Even the title of this journal emphasizes work and, while this can be taken as a general term for achievement rather than just efficiency or effectiveness, it does focus attention away from many of the issues that face the designers of technologies aimed at the leisure market. The papers in this issue show that the principles of how to undertake analysis of household technologies and of finding an appropriate unit of analysis are emerging. We are also seeing more clearly how to involve people in the design of the technologies in their homes and how to evaluate design concepts and ideas. The consensus is that analysis must be grounded in the real experiences of household members, that we need to think in terms of a ‘living space’ rather than a physical house and that we need to focus on concepts and activities that are meaningful to people as a unit of analysis. Most importantly the papers presented here highlight how our understanding of technologies and people needs to be expanded from the work-based tradition that has informed most methods of analysis and design to include the people-centred issues such as personalization, experience, engagement, purpose, reliability, fun, respect and identity (to name but a few) that are key to these emerging technologies. The six papers in this special issue can be seen along a continuum beginning with an exploration of the home as a social/cultural phenomenon and finishing with design issues for specific technologies. We start with sociological contributions in the wild and finish with usability evaluation in the laboratory. In travelling this course we encounter a wide range of issues and methods concerned with household technologies and the people who use them. Of course, all the papers in some way attempt to address the home as a social and cultural phenomenon, but the emphasis shifts as we move through the papers. In The social consumption of information and communication technologies (ICTs), James Stewart introduces some key social theories, notably theories of consumption, domestication and appropriation, that have been used to study household environments. The home space is changing, technologies are becoming increasingly personal and personalized and the distinctions between home, community and work are becoming more blurred. Cogn Tech Work (2003) 5: 2–3 DOI 10.1007/s10111-002-0110-y