Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a multidisciplinary field that explores the interaction between humans and computers, emphasizing especially the design and use of computer technology. Within this domain, the notion of sense of agency, usually defined as the users perceiving their actions as influencing the system, is of crucial importance. Another central notion is that of socio-technical systems, referring to the interplay between social and technical elements. In this work, we delve into users’ perceptions of their interactions with smart devices, drawing insights from a dataset collected during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.

The dataset, gathered through an expansive survey, was distributed in professional and personal networks, offers a window into the perspectives of 587 respondents, predominantly highly educated professionals with significant technological familiarity. While the sample’s specificity limits the generalizability of findings, it offers valuable insights into how tech-savvy users perceive their interactions with smart devices, illuminating the nuanced dynamics of HCI within socio-technical contexts.

One of the survey’s notable aspects was its focus on users’ choice of a single smart device to consider throughout their responses. This deliberate framing encourages a deeper exploration of users’ relationships with specific technologies, shedding light on the intricacies of their interactions. For respondents who did not own multiple smart devices, the instruction was to choose their primary device, such as a computer or mobile phone, thus ensuring consistency in the examination of user experiences.

Within the dataset, various dimensions of users’ interactions with smart devices emerged, encompassing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects. Users’ perceptions of agency, defined as their sense of control and influence over the device, are particularly intriguing. Analysis of the dataset reveals diverse manifestations of agency, ranging from feelings of empowerment and efficiency to frustrations stemming from perceived limitations or complexities in device operation.

Moreover, the socio-technical lens allows us to delve deeper into the contextual factors shaping users’ interactions. The dataset captures not only users’ individual experiences but also the broader socio-cultural and technological landscapes influencing these interactions. Factors such as educational background, professional expertise, age, and gender are among the variables examined, offering insights into how these socio-demographic factors intersect with users’ perceptions of smart device interactions.

The dataset’s utilization in previous research endeavors underscores its significance in advancing our understanding of human-computer interaction, user behavior analysis, and agency. By building upon existing research and leveraging the data available, researchers can uncover deeper insights into the complexities of smart device interactions and contribute to the development of more user-centered technologies.

The COVID-19 context during which the data were collected adds another layer of complexity to the analysis. Due to the increased time spent at home and the increase in remote work, the global pandemic catalyzed increased reliance on technology for work, education, and socialization. Understanding users’ interactions with smart devices within this unique context provides valuable implications for designing technologies that accommodate evolving user needs and preferences.

In conclusion, users’ notions of their interactions with smart devices offer a rich tapestry of insights that intersect with key concepts in HCI, including agency and socio-technical systems. Through the analysis of a dataset collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, we gain valuable insights into users’ perceptions, behaviors, and experiences with smart devices within the context of a rapidly evolving technological landscape. This dataset serves as a springboard for further exploration in the field, driving forward our understanding of human-computer interactions in an increasingly digital world.

Where to find more:

• Agency in Human-Smart Device Relationship: A work in progress description of a research done with this dataset

Initial call for collecting the responses

Link to the dataset (Open Access)

https://doi.org/10.3390/data9040056

https://doi.org/10.34894/traony

Main Personal Related Publication

https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16030090

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Objectives of the Workshop:

Industry 4.0 is the integration of IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), cyber-physical systems, and Cloud that brought us smart factories, putting technology at the forefront of manufacturing. It heavily focusses on maximizing given set of mainly technology and economic KPIs: in other words, the systems efficiency. Industry 5.0 provides a vison of industry that aims beyond efficiency and productivity as the sole goals and reinforces the
role and the contribution of industry to society.
The workshop will discuss what are the drivers, the barriers and the implications of leveraging the technological solutions developed in Industry 4.0 (I4.0) to address relevant societal impacts, so aligning with the EC agenda.

With the final goal of further interconnecting Civil Society, Government & Policy Makers, Academia and Industry, the workshop will discuss how to shape the Industry 5.0 (I5.0) paradigm to enable a human-centric, resilient society, the green transition, and the related awareness, what is the role of interoperability, and how the SMEs can contribute to this process.
It will discuss methodological approaches and models to describe from both an ICT and Social Science perspective the ever-increasing complexity of socio-technical systems that are core of I4.0 and I5.0 and foresee an extensive use of AI-based solutions. This will include, but not limit to, how to identify, measure, monitor and feedback key features and attributes to keep all the stakeholders informed and satisfied.
The workshop will also touch upon the key concepts of Data Spaces and Testing and Experimentation Facilities as a way to answer current challenges in I4.0 and support the transition to I5.0 exploring interoperability challenges reaching solutions to industry.

Topics of interest:

• Interoperability in the transition to the human centric approach.
• Interoperable socio-technical systems.
• SME supporting interoperability in I5.0.
• AI as a support to Civil Society, Government & Policy Makers.
• Digital Education and impact of ICT and data sharing on the green agenda.
• Multi-Stakeholders monitoring models and tools.
• The role of AI in governing the transitioning I4.0 to I5.0.
• The workforce in I5.0.
• Methodologies, prototypes, and tools addressing the human-centric approach in socio-technical systems.
• SME vs large industry approach to provide tools in interoperable socio-technical systems.
• Addressing privacy and trust in interoperable human-centered systems.
• Best practices and guidelines to foster the collaboration among Social and ICT Scientists.
• Practical experiences of AI solution used beyond efficiency improvement.
• Experiences, insights, and vision on setting up and use of Data Spaces to support I5.0.
• Experiences on setting up and use of Testing and Experimentation Facilities to support I5.0

AI Beyond Efficiency: Paper Submission

Papers must be in English, describes original work and must follow the CEUR guidelines for authors. Paper length should be 6 pages for a full paper and 4 pages for a short paper.
Authors should submit their contributions by email to the Workshop Chairs: sdm2d11@soton.ac.uk, mjnunez@aidimme.es, F.Lelli@tilburguniversity.edu, davide.dallecarbonare@eng.it

Important Dates:

• January 31st, February the 7th, 2022 First draft paper submission
• February 15th, 2022 Notification of acceptance
• March 23rd, 24th, 2022 I-ESA 2022 Workshops
• April 18th, 2022 Camera-ready
• June 20th, 2022 Publication of Proceedings

Further Information about the co-location with I-ESA, venues and proceeding

Since several years, I-ESA is the major event regarding Enterprise Interoperability and the official conference of Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) with the sponsorship of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).
Accepted and presented papers will be published by CEUR Workshops Proceedings

Please, consider that at least one author per paper must register to the Workshops. If none of the authors is registered, the paper will not be included in the workshop program and in the proceedings

Workshop Chairs:

• Stefano Modafferi (University of Southampton, UK),
• Maria José Nunez (AIDIMME, SP),
• Francesco Lelli (University of Tilburg, NL),
• Davide Dalle Carbonare (Engineering, IT)

Program Committee (alphabetical order):

• Emiel Caron (University of Tilburg, NL);
• Luca Caviglione (CNR-IMATI, IT);
• Francesco D’Andria (Atos ARI, SP);
• Angelo Di Iorio (Universita’ di Bologna, IT);
• Akpofure Enughwure (Nigeria Maritime University, NG);
• Nicholas Fair (University of Southampton, UK);
• Alessia Focareta (FIDIA SPA, IT);
• Simone Fratini (Solenix Enineering GmbH, DE);
• Javed Khan (Sappi Europe, BE);
• Florian Kunneman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL);
• Manuel Mazzara (Innopolis University, RU);
• Rashid Mehmood (King Abdulaziz University, SA)
• Raffaele Montella (Universita’ di Napoli Partenope, IT);
• Alexandros Nizamis (CERTH/ITI, GR);
• Antonio Nocera (Universita’ di Pavia);
• Joao Sarraipa (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, PT);  
• Usman Wajid (Information Catalyst, UK).

Help us spread the voice:

First #workshop on #AI Beyond Efficiency: Interoperability towards Industry 5.0.#Industry40 #BigData #MachineLearning #artificialintelligence #iot #DataScience #coding #pythoncode #Software #service
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Abstract:
With technology in reach of everyone and the technology sector in ascendance, it is central to investigate the relationship people have with their devices. We use the concept of agency to capture aspects of user’s sense of mastery and control in relation
to their device. This study gives preliminary evidence of the existence of two dimensions of agency for modelling the interaction between humans and smart devices: (i) user agency and (ii) device agency. These constructs emerged from an exploratory factorial analysis conducted on a survey data collected from 587 participants. Mapping the users’ dynamics with their devices into user agency and device agency advances our understanding of how digital technology shapes human cognition and emotion and how
users interact with technology. This approach can assist in designing interfaces that match the beliefs users have regarding their capabilities and the capacities of their devices.

Key words: Agency, Human-Computer Interaction, smart devices, user agency, device agency, exploratory factorial analysis, survey.

we show that agency in human-smart device interactions is a twofold and graded construct, consisting of user agency and device agency. The attributing of agency to themselves and to their device frames how the users are perceiving and leveraging the affordances of the smart device. The attribution of user and device agency can be used as a measure for understanding if the user masters the device’s potentials to the fullest or not. Thus, user agency and device agency can be used as proxies for understanding how users experience their relationships with their devices.

The conceptualization of agency proposed here should be further refined in relation to other existing constructs. We should investigate whether user and device agency act as mediators for other factors of human-device interaction such as anthropomorphism and other concepts mentioned in this article. Furthermore, our exploratory study should be developed further to a point where we can perform confirmatory factor analysis. As the next step, an expert panel will be summoned to review the items used in this study, in preparation for refining the survey before collecting new data for the second set of statistical analyses. Furthermore, we should continue exploring the nuances of agency in different contexts of smart device use, such as work vs. personal.
Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club (1999) states that “the things you own end up owning you”. In the context of smart devices, this is true only if we are unaware of the agency we attribute to our devices and to ourselves. Perhaps the secret of a balanced relationship with our gadgets is in making an aware decision of when and how to be “owned” by the device and when not.

Full article available at this link.

Check out the presentation:

Your help in sharing the idea is very welcome!

Agency in Human-Smart Device Relationships: An Exploratory Study #HCI #IoT #smarthome #homeautomation #survey #softwaredevelopment #softwareengineering
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Cite this paper as:

Toivonen, Heidi and Lelli, Francesco, “Agency in Human-Smart Device Relationship: an Exploratory Study” (2021). PACIS 2021 Proceedings. 145. https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2021/145

Check out the Related Dataset: Lelli, Francesco; Toivonen, Heidi, 2021, “A Survey for investigating human and smart devices relationships“,  https://doi.org/10.34894/TRAONY, DataverseNL, V1

• Full list of Articles
• Full list of Conference Publications

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At a first look these questions look really obvious, to the point that they do not really need to be answered. However, “the obvious” is what most often shapes our behavior without us being aware of it. In particular, our relation with the objects around us, from an anthropological perspective, is what literally allowed us to become humans and helped us in interacting and modifying the surrounding environment.

This study intends to provide an introspective analysis of the way we approach the relationship we have with “things”. As a result, this study may foster a deeper understanding of ourselves and help us in prioritizing what we need, what we want and what we desire in life.

Dr. Heidi Toivonen and me decided to develop a multidisciplinary research on human-smart devices interaction that will try to answer some of these questions in a scientifically sound manner.  

In this respect we need your help! In particular, we are inviting you to take part in a little survey regarding your relationship with smart devices. In taking this survey, you will be able to reflect on how you relate to technology. At the same time you will be contributing to a study that aims to foster a deeper understanding of human interaction with personal smart devices that are becoming a more and more pervasive element of our everyday life. 

We sincerely appreciate your support and collaboration. 

Completing the survey will take you no more than 5 minutes.

Follow this link to the Survey:
Human-Smart Device Interaction

You are also welcome to extend this invitation to anybody you think may be interested in participating in this research. Please share this link and help us spread the voice!

Participate to a scientific #research that will #help #understanding the #interactive #relationships between #humans and smart devices. It takes only 5 minutes of your time! #IoT #HCI #psychology #AI #BigData
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You can contact us if you have any questions or feedback to share. In addition, if you have done work that you believe is relevant for this research, we look forward to learning from you! 

Thanks for your contribution to science!

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In the past few years, the idea of extending the Grid to cover also the remote access, control, management of instrument devices has been explored in a few initiatives. Existing tools lack in generality and require advanced specialized computer science knowledge, thus making them difficult to be broadly adopted in the scientific community. In this paper we present a new open source initiative that is designed to overcome these problems. The Tiny Instrument Element project defines a high level architecture for plugging instruments into the Grid and provides the corresponding skeleton implementation. This lightweight approach, as opposed to existing middleware-based solutions, reduces the effort required to Gridify existing instruments. The paper evaluates the proposed abstraction with a case study from a pervasive computing scenario.

Some relevant Key words: IoT, Internet of things, smart devices, cloud computing, web service, ubiquitous computing, plugin.

In this paper we present the Tiny Instrument Element project showing our proposed novel approach to the integration between instruments and the Grid. Instead of building a new middleware we propose to use a semifinite artifact (i.e., a skeleton software) that can be tailored to meet the requirements of a specific instrument characteristics. This approach not only provides an uniform access to the Gridified instruments but also leaves the flexibility to customize and tune the Tiny Instrument Element for optimal monitoring and control of the instruments. From the case study we have seen that none of the code included in the Tiny Instrument Element release was redundant and that the time required in order to gain a good understanding of the API and the corresponding skeleton was quite small. This supports the idea of template-based software development. The Project has started full open source activities in September 2008. If we exclude our personal activity and the one performed by the case study participants, until the end of 2008, the project website attracted 304 unique visitors (7 Returning many times). The source code was downloaded 40 times and the authors were contacted with positive feedback by 2 users of the community. Whereas the project has been running for a relatively short time, these numbers are promising and show the benefit of a transparent development process to achieve wider dissemination of our research ideas

Full article available at the following link:

The Tiny Instrument Element:
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01671-4_27

Read the paper at this link

Your help in sharing the idea is very welcome!

Cite this paper as:

F. Lelli and C. Pautasso The Tiny Instrument Element Project In proc of 4th International Conference on Grid and Pervasive Computing (GPC) , Geneva, Switzerland, May 2009

Related Article:

• The Many Faces of the Integration of Instruments and the Grid

The #tiny Instrument Element for integrating #IoT and #Cloud . An early precursor of #EdgeComputing
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• Full list of Articles
• Full list of Journal Publications
• Full list of Conference Publications

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