S^3: Smart Shadow System for Real World Service and Its Evaluation with Users

Many studies have been focusing on building smart environments, which provide useful real world services (RWSs). However, with RWSs, feature interactions (FIs), device and service conflicts, occur more often because many devices run automatically. For this FI problem, we have been developing a Smart Shadow System (S
³
), which provides RWSs and is able to dynamically detect and resolve FIs. We describe an experiment for general users to try RWSs provided by S
³
in two scenarios. The purpose of one of the scenarios is to clarify convenience of RWSs and that of the other is to determine the acceptability of FI resolution approaches. We obtained results from three viewpoints and analyzed them according to the two purposes mentioned above. We conclude that RWSs are convenient for general users and that an approach for resolving FIs with user interaction is the most acceptable for general users. Finally, we discuss issues that need to be addressed.