DfA project. Interfaces and interaction

Systems for AAL aim at preserving and enhancing independence of elderly people in all aspects of daily life, addressing activities at home, security, and so forth [1]. A home based system, as the one concerning the project D4All, is based on the seamless integration of several devices, such as sensors and intelligence appliances[2], [3]. In such a system, information and its processing assume a particular value, and represents, together with specific functionalities of each intelligent objects, a basic component in the implementation of every service. This implies that the interaction between user and environment results quite complex and the design of the interfaces must accurately take in account which kind of service is more appropriate for these systems. Together with the aspects such as accessibility, usability, multimodality[4], in this context, services must follow the activities that every user carries on in the environment and all possible connections that exists between them. This represent the starting level for every process of adaptation, which will be based on the specific way that each user selects to carry on an activity within the environment. The specific example of the DfA system is here presented, where four main topics for the services have been identified, Appliances, Recipe-book, Diary and Pantry. The list starts from the activities related to the home environment of the WHO International Classification of Functioning and Disability[5], but adds a detailed structure of different options, which reflect a wide range of different possibilities of human activity