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  • Exploring DIY Practices of Complex Home Technologies

    Rights statement: © The Authors, 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 24, 2, 2017 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3057863

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Exploring DIY practices of complex home technologies

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Article number16
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/04/2017
<mark>Journal</mark>ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
Issue number2
Volume24
Number of pages29
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

We are surrounded by increasingly complex networks of smart objects, yet our understanding and attachment to them is rather limited. One way to support stronger end users’ engagement with such complex technologies is by involving them in the design process and with the advent of Arduino prototyping platform, even in their making. While DIY practice offers the potential for stronger user engagement with physical artifacts, we know little about end users’ DIY practice of making complex electronic technologies and their potential to ensure engagement with such devices. In this paper, we report on interviews with 18 participants from two green communities who built and used an open source DIY energy monitor, with the aim to explore the end users DIY practices of making such complex electronic devices. Findings indicate four key qualities of DIY monitors: transparent modularity, open-endedness, heirloom and disruptiveness, and how they contribute to more meaningful engagement with the DIY monitors, elevating them from the status of unremarkable objects to that of things. We conclude with three implications for design for supporting end user development of complex electronic DIY: designing transparent open hardware technologies, standardizing communication protocols for the current and future DIY of IoT; and deliberately calling for personal investment and labor in the assembling of DIY kits.

Bibliographic note

© The Authors, 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 24, 2, 2017 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3057863