Behind the Design: MODHOME
INTRODUCTION
Abstract
The Modular Home Assistant is a digital interface that allows users to program time-specific configurations within a modular home to trigger bedroom, living room, kitchen, and office layouts. There are a series of internet-connected mechanics within the home that can be controlled either specifically, i.e opening a drawer, or through a set series of actions, e.g. activating an office layout by extending a table, unfolding the chair, turning on the desk lamp.
Automated and programmable configurations reduce physical exertion, cognitive load, and time, making compact and modular homes accessible to a wider audience. This provides accommodation for disabled and elderly people.
Audience
While the Modular Home Assistant would be useful for people with physical limitations of all ages, we are primarily targeting middle and upper class consumers willing to invest in accessibility automation in their homes. We also recognize that this technology can be used by any person who want a simple way to reconfigure their home space, reduce physical exertion, and increase efficiency in the home. Age and gender are not crucial to our target demographic.
Technical Requirements
Since our application serves as a hub to manage and control the home with automated function, it needs a way to connect to and talk to the physical motors and devices to activate them through WiFi and Bluetooth connections.
Possible Constraints
Constraints for this technology rely in several areas. The first is that there needs to be a plethora of devices that can be installed in the home that would be able to be controlled and automated through our application. Another area of possible constraint is that this type of home needs to be created with precise architecture and interior design calculations to be effective and intentional to work together with our application.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
Existing Alternatives
Similar Form Factors
Visual Language References
RESEARCH
Interview Questions
For interviewees with disabilities and physical limitations
What physical household tasks do you find difficult?
Can you tell us some modifications you’ve made at home to make things more accessible for your disability?
Do you have an assistant living with you, and what do they help with?
What types of technology help you/ improve your quality of living?
For tiny home owners
How accessible is your home currently?
How often do you recieve questions about accessibility in your home?
Would you take steps to increase (invest in) accessibility if it meant you would book more clients with those needs?
For American Disability Association (ADA) compliance experts
What are some challenges that come with making a (tiny) home ADA compliant?
What are the biggest financial investments for people who need more accessible living conditions?
What are some common home modifications for people with disabilities?
Which differences between commercial and residential ADA compliance are important?
Research Findings
Tim Speaker
63 years old, male, San Luis Obispo
Tim is problems with motor coordination, and struggles with actions such as walking at a steady pace and feeding himself.
At home, he’s performed modifications to make it more accessible. He’s removed all borders in the bathroom so he doesn’t have to step over anything; installed a cement grade so the floor would drain towards the drain, without needing a border to control water flow; shower heads on both ends, so he can be showered in a wheelchair, without needed to be turned; a pole for the shower head to slide up and down for easy height adjustment; a gradation between changes in flooring to bridge inconsistencies in levels; shower head on the pole sliding up and down; tile and flooring intersection has a gradual ramp that bridges the two levels; grip bars by the toilet and in places where there is a change of lighting or flooring or elevation; reverse door locks to keep him from entering parts of the house unsupervised. He has a walking companion who helps supervise him.
Tim owns a Project Lifesaver. It’s a tracker, but the receiver is only accessible through the sheriff’s department. It’s free, and they come once a month to change the batteries. He also wants to invest in a smart watch with fall detection and locating services.
Delia Tesauro
92 years old, female, Paso Robles
Delia has a compression fracture in the middle of her back. This makes it difficult to leave the house or go far. She uses a walker to get around.
Delia lives with her daughter, who helps her with tasks such as showering, cooking, cleaning, and getting in and out of chairs. Her bedroom and bathroom are both spacious for her to move through with a walker. Many of the layouts in her home are open layouts with plenty of space to move around in either a walker or a wheelchair.For people in a wheelchair, the counter of the kitchen is already high out of their reach.
Janet Steinbergs
70 years old, female, San Luis Obispo
Janet has fibromyalgia, which causes low energy and pain. It’s difficult for her to vacuum, mop, or perform labor intensive and physically strenuous activities. It can even be hard for her to cook because the constant standing is difficult for her. She hires cleaning people once a week to come tidy up her house. At her age, she is not looking to buy into homes with stairs. She prefers a small place, where she doesn’t need much energy to keep up with property.
Due to her disability, she prefers buying clothing and other things online (not groceries), rather than spend energy shopping in person. She owns an iPhone and an iPad, and uses these two devices to access the internet.
Gwen Hanson
82 years old, female, San Luis Obispo
Gwen has balance issues, especially with walking, standing, and bending over. Her disability restricts her from performing regular home activities, e.g. getting in and out of the tub, unloading the lower shelf of the dishwasher, picking things up off the floor, making her bed, showering (related to balance, fear of falling), and carrying heavy items.
She’s made modifications in her home to make it more accessible, e.g. replaced the bathtub with a shower and grab bars, removed anything that posed as a tripping hazard, installed sliding bedroom doors with grab bars, and removed steps and uneven elevation in the path leading to her front door.
She uses a Chromebook for browsing the internet. She is intimidated by all features, but is okay with operating it if everything is already set up for her. She also owns a lamp that emits B12 to simulate sunlight indoors.
Matthew Placencia
21 years old, male, San Diego
Matthew has dystonia, which involves corrupted signals in the brain, affecting motor control. His left arm and left leg signal is corrupted. This affects posture and occasional cramping.
He has a few special modifications at home to accommodate his lifestyle. He has a chair in the shower, cuts on a cutting board with rubber feet, and uses a tooth with flip cap, something that would be convenient for one-handed use. Spacing between things in the house promote a safer open layout, overall a place wider and better for wheelchair. He also has grab bars in the bathtub, non-slip floors, counters lowered for easy access.
USER INTERACTION DESIGN
Persona
Frank Wilmington
65 years old, male
“I don’t want my chronic pain to prevent me from living comfortably.”
Frank is a retired home contractor who lives by himself. He has chronic back pain which makes tasks like walking and lifting things difficult. Due to his lack of mobility, Frank doesn’t have much energy to keep up with his property and prefers a smaller living space. He has considered making modifications in his home to limit him from intense physical exertion. He is willing to invest in smart technology that helps him be safe and healthy as long as everything is already set up and easy to use.
Goals
Reduce back pain from doing household tasks
Live in an environment in which he feels safe
Maintain his independence
Lead a healthy and sustainable lifestyle
Scenario
An alarm wakes Frank up at 7am. He gets up and uses the bathroom to get ready. By preset settings, during this time the system triggers the kitchen configuration and it is ready for use. After eating and cooking, he uses voice control to tell the system to set up his office area. The office area is configured automatically, and he spends the rest of the work day in the office configuration.
Frank is having guests over in the evening. He needs to prepare before they arrive. He accesses the system’s touch interface on the wall, and selects the kitchen and dining category. He then taps on dining table and bench, and immediately the walls pull down to reveal a table and seating bench. Then he taps into the kitchen category, and selects the option to lower his kitchen cabinets for better access. The guests arrive and they have a wonderful time. After they finish eating, Frank uses the touch interface to configure the living room layout. The guests help set their dishes in the washer, and Frank uses voice command to activate the wash cycle. They spend the evening chatting in his living room. After they leave, Frank is exhausted and wants to sleep. He uses voice command to hide away the living room configuration and activates the bedroom configuration. A murphy bed lowers from the wall and a nightstand unfolds itself. Frank gets in bed, voice commands for the lights to be turned off, and sleeps.
Interaction Framework
Wireframes
USABILITY ANALYSIS
Usability Analysis Tests
Prompts
Add tv to your bedroom configuration.
Use voice control to set up your office.
Create a new alarm.
Matthew Placencia
21 years old, male. Paralyzed on the left side of the body.
First prompt observation: Tapped on the bedroom configuration. Expected the result to lead him to a deeper settings page for the Bedroom. But instead it just activated the Bedroom configuration. Frustrated. Attempted to long-tap, and figured out how to access settings. “Not easy to access. Some people can’t press and hold down for very long.” Rest of the process was fine.
Second prompt observation: Tapped on the voice button, and spoke. Relatively simple and straight forward for Matthew.
Third prompt observation: First reaction, “where can I find alarms...?” Scrolls and taps around, trying to find alarms. Recalls seeing something about alarms in the presets, accesses the preset configuration page again. Spots the alarms. “What are alarms for? Oh I get it now. So I can program this to happen again and again.”
Janet Steinbergs
70 years old, female. Fibromyalgia, causes pain and low energy.
First prompt observation: Tapped on the bedroom tile. Saw that it turned on, tapped it again to turn it off. Tapped this again several times, led to nothing. Scrolled down and looked for other options. Frustrated and gave up.
Second prompt observation: Took a few moments to find the voice control button, but overall simple to navigate.
Third prompt observation: We prompted her to long-press to access the preset configuration after the first prompt. With this knowledge, she knew to look there for alarms. She went through setting up an alarm easily.
Gwen Hanson
82 years old, female. No disabilities.
First prompt observation: Took a moment to look through all the buttons and layouts. Carefully tapped on the bedroom tile with hesitation. Saw that it turned on, remained confused and did not know how to proceed. We had to verbally help her for the rest of this prompt.
Second prompt observation: “I don’t know what that means.” After tapping around, she notices the microphone. “Is it maybe this?” Stumbled upon this action after much trial and error.
Third prompt observation: “Oh I don’t know how I’m going to do that.” With prompting to enter the preset screen, Gwen still struggled to understand what she was doing exactly. She sees the alarms and doesn’t know how to interact with it. The icons aren’t enough to help her understand how to use this function of the application.
Usability Analysis Results
We need to add new buttons need to be more specific for what they’re adding since we have add new configuration, new alarm, new device etc
Homepage is a bit confusing as to its function/ purpose We need clearer buttons and areas where the user can take action. Instead of a long-press, we should include an “Edit” button to directly feed into the preset configurations.
Tasks were not hard to complete, once the main point of navigation was discovered. For a younger user, this was easier. For an older user, certain navigation gestures are not as intuitive.
Changes from Results
Add new buttons at the top to make them more accessible, sizing needs to also increase to make them more visible.
Adjust home configurations and configuration editing screens to make their function more clear.
Add new alarm and add new configuration buttons at the top so that you don’t have to scroll to get to them if you have a ton of items.
USER INTERFACE DESIGN
Final Product
Ethical Considerations
We recognize that voice input and voice control commands would need to be recorded and processed for the software to understand and identify commands. We also recognize that WiFi and Bluetooth connections make this application open and susceptible to hacks and other malicious efforts to extract data. This application should not hold any data on the user, and none of the conversations or voice commands should be recorded. We also understand that this platform may be hacked. Security is important to this application, and while it cannot be guaranteed we uphold the highest standards of security to grant our users peace of mind when using this platform.
Future Enhancements
We have also considered adding controls to automate a home, such as rotating the home according to where the sun in the sky is, providing optimal natural lighting throughout the day. We have also considered making the home have autopilot features, where the home can drive and maneuver itself to destinations to meet its owner. This could accommodate for additional accessibility restrictions, such as lack of transportation and accessibility to hospitals for users without other transportation.