Augmenting Home and Office Environments
Elizabeth Mynatt, Douglas Blattner, Meera M. Blattner, Blair MacIntyre, Jennifer Mankoff · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98) · doi:10.1145/274497.274529
Summary
This panel paper brings together five researchers from Xerox PARC, CommunityVision Inc., UC Davis/Lawrence Livermore, Columbia University, and Georgia Tech to discuss how augmented environments — homes and offices enhanced with sensors, computing, and multimodal interfaces — can serve as assistive technologies. The paper presents four distinct but complementary perspectives. Elizabeth Mynatt (Xerox PARC) describes Audio Aura, a system that uses active badges, distributed systems, and wireless headphones to provide serendipitous auditory information tied to people's physical movements in a workplace — for example, an "auditory footprint" indicating how long a colleague has been away from their office. This work is part of PARC's efforts in "calm technology," enriching the periphery of attention rather than demanding direct interaction. Douglas Blattner presents a real-world automated home in Las Vegas with 70 security sensors, 50 dimmers and switches, 9 thermostats, audio/video distribution, irrigation control, and personal calendar reminders, all managed through a multi-level client/server architecture. His company's NexTropolis system links automated homes into community networks with remote configuration and support — services described as particularly important for disabled and elderly users. Meera Blattner addresses the interface design challenge: home automation must serve a diverse population including people with disabilities, the elderly, children, and non-native speakers, requiring multimodal interfaces that do not depend solely on vision, hearing, or touch. Blair MacIntyre (Columbia) presents augmented reality using see-through head-worn displays, including KARMA for maintenance assistance and explorations of hybrid information spaces combining head-mounted, handheld, desktop, and wall displays. Jennifer Mankoff (Georgia Tech) describes ubiquitous computing research at building, room, and desk scales, including Domisilica (a virtual home model) and Classroom 2000 (instrumented lecture capture).
Key findings
The panel identified several key research challenges for augmented environments as assistive technology. First, interfaces must be multimodal — the panelists explicitly state that "we cannot depend on outputs only for eyes, ears, or touch" and that auditory and tactile output has been "greatly underutilized." Second, information representation must be flexible: speech, non-speech sounds, text, and visual images should be interchangeable, with the system selecting the appropriate modality based on context and user preferences. Third, control devices should be accessible from a distance rather than requiring users to cross a room — a direct accessibility consideration for people with motor disabilities. Fourth, context awareness is essential: systems need to interpret user intent from sensor data without requiring explicit commands, but the panelists note that this can often be achieved through "simple, yet effective measures" rather than full AI. The Audio Aura concept of background auditory cues that enrich awareness without demanding attention represents a model of non-intrusive assistive information delivery. The NexTropolis community network model, with remote configuration and centralised support, anticipated the modern smart home ecosystem where cloud-based services manage accessible home automation.
Relevance
This panel is historically significant for explicitly connecting the augmented/smart environments research community with the assistive technology community at a time when these were largely separate fields. The panelists' key insight — that augmented environments designed well for general use are inherently useful as assistive technologies — anticipated the broader shift toward inclusive design. Many of the concepts presented here have become mainstream: smart home automation (now via platforms like Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Amazon Alexa), audio augmented reality (now via AirPods spatial audio), instrumented classrooms (now standard in higher education), and community-linked home monitoring (now common for aging-in-place). For accessibility practitioners today, the paper's emphasis on multimodal interfaces, context-aware computing, and peripheral awareness remains directly relevant. The unresolved challenge of designing universal interfaces for home automation systems that work across diverse abilities, ages, and preferences is arguably more important now than in 1998, given the proliferation of smart home devices with inconsistent accessibility.
Tags: home automation · augmented reality · ubiquitous computing · smart environments · multimodal interface · assistive technology · calm technology · environmental control