From accessible interfaces to useful and adapted interactions

Ambient intelligence (AmI) is presently considered an important technological development able to support people in all environments (home, office, school, hospital, city). The paper aims to show that: i) the present state of technology already offers the possibility of implementing useful and usable support applications; ii) however its usefulness could be enhanced, increasing impact on all people, with particular reference to people who have some limitations of activities (e.g. older people), if deployed in a carefully planned way; iii) a way off from present limitations may be an artificial intelligence control of the environment itself and of the services made available in it. It is also shown that accessibility is a fundamental prerequisite, but the real problems are the usefulness and usability of available environments and applications. The discussion will be made with reference to an implemented experimental application to support feeding. Its interesting features and remaining limitations are used to support the above statements.