rule builder at isami 2011

A USER-FRIENDLY INTERFACE FOR RULES COMPOSITION IN

INTELLIGENT ENVIRONMENTDario Bonino, Fulvio Corno, Luigi De RussisPolitecnico di Torino, e-Lite Research Group

http://elite.polito.it

OUTLINE

•Motivations and goal

• Requirements

• Interface design

• Conclusions

A User-Friendly Interface for RulesComposition in Intelligent Environment 2

MOTIVATIONS


•Need to find a suitable trade-off between:

• totally direct user control of the home

• fully automatic home behavior

• Feasible solution: rule-based activity delegation

• lack of effective rules definition interfaces

OUR GOAL


Define a rule definition interfacespecifically aimed at non-skilled home inhabitants

FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS


• Rules:

• definable by people with basic level of computer literacy

• self-explaining

• always valid

• expressive enough to manage almost home situations

NOT FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS


• Facilitate rule creation by means of:

• suggestions

• auto-filling functionalities

• auto-saving functionalities

• Home devices shall be exposed in an abstract and technology independent way

HOW TO?


• Rich-web interface

• Formal rule representation grammar

• Constrained editing

• rules are always valid

• Rule objects and grammar easy to render as nearly natural language

PAPER PROTOTYPE


INTERFACE CONCEPT (1/4)


• Sam wants to create the rule: If the living room is dark, turn on the lamp.

• By opening the Rule Builder he sees:

- LAYOUT -





- LAYOUT -

what he needs to createthe rule





- LAYOUT -

a wide area to beused for the rule

definition

what he needs to createthe rule



• Sam decides to drag the “light intensity sensor” under the “IF”:

- DRAG AND AUTO-DOCKING -



• Sam decides to drag the “light intensity sensor” under the “IF”:

- DRAG AND AUTO-DOCKING -

the sensor docksand shows a list to specify

what event has to intercept



•When Sam starts to drag the lamp, two new (optional) “blocks” appear:

- GRAMMAR BASED SUGGESTIONS -



• Sam concludes the rule by dragging the lamp and selecting the proper action:

- NEARLY NATURAL LANGUAGE -



• Sam concludes the rule by dragging the lamp and selecting the proper action:

- NEARLY NATURAL LANGUAGE -

the rule is complete anda sentence summarizes it

THE GRAMMAR BEHIND


THE GRAMMAR BEHIND


• mandatory• event to trigger

the rule(E-BLOCK)

• controllable devices, clock and sensors

• optional• conditions

constraining the event(C-BLOCKs)


• mandatory• set of actions

to be executed(A-BLOCKs)

• controllable devices

THE GRAMMAR BEHIND


• mandatory• event to trigger

the rule(E-BLOCK)


• optional• conditions

constraining the event(C-BLOCKs)


• mandatory• set of actions

to be executed(A-BLOCKs)

• controllable devices

disjunction for repeatingIF-WHEN more than once

WORK IN PROGRESS...


CONCLUSIONS


• Rule Builder

• conceptual and first “working” design

• rich-web interface

• for home inhabitants with little or no technological skills

• based on a formal grammar

THANK YOU


Luigi De Russis

[email protected]

rule builder at isami 2011

Technology

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