Sentinel: Universal Access to Ambient Devices
Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 4, page 399--403. London, UK, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, (2003)Abstract
We suggest that with the advent of ambient devices, pervasive computing systems, mobile user devices and the associated move towards accessing mobile information the HCI community has a perfect opportunity to influence the design of mobile interfaces early in their life-cycle. The Sentinel activity (part of the wider proXimity project) seeks to de-couple the interface (siren) from the ambient object (fire alarm) and place that interface with the user's mobile device (PDA, 'Braille n Speak'). The user device is specific to that user and so too is the interface; however, the problem of static interface creation (normally by sighted designers) still exists. If we are truly to make access to the real world a universal activity the presentation of the interface (buttons, sliders, etc.) must be separated from the functionality of the device, and therefore the functionality the interface is required to fulfil (data and control instructions). Sentinel aims to address this issue by using functional prototypes (written in XML) to separate these two areas. It does this without specifying the type of interface-control (button, tick-box, etc.) required and instead delegates the interface-control presentation task to the user-device which can more individually react to the accessibility needs of its user.
