Smart home systems change the way we experience the home. While there are established research fields within HCI for visualizing specific use cases of a smart home, studies targeting user demands on visualizations spanning across multiple use cases are rare. Especially, individual data-related demands pose a challenge for usable visualizations. To investigate potentials of an end-user development (EUD) approach for flexibly supporting such demands, we developed a smart home system featuring both pre-defined visualizations and a visualization creation tool. To evaluate our concept, we installed our prototype in 12 households as part of a Living Lab study. Results are based on three interview studies, a design workshop and system log data. We identified eight overarching interests in home data and show how participants used pre-defined visualizations to get an overview and the creation tool to not only address specific use cases but also to answer questions by creating temporary visualizations.

Smart home systems are becoming an integral feature of the emerging home IT market. Under this general term, products mainly address issues of security, energy savings and comfort. Comprehensive systems that cover several use cases are typically operated and managed via a unified dashboard. Unfortunately, research targeting user experience (UX) design for smart home interaction that spans several use cases or covering the entire system is scarce. Furthermore, existing comprehensive and user-centered longterm studies on challenges and needs throughout phases of information collection, installation and operation of smart home systems are technologically outdated. Our 18-month Living Lab study covering 14 households equipped with smart home technology provides insights on how to design for improving smart home appropriation. This includes a stronger sensibility for household practices during setup and configuration, flexible visualizations for evolving demands and an extension of smart home beyond the location.

Living Labs provide a 'human-centric' research approach for the design of new ICT artefacts.In Living Labs users participate over several design stages, providing insights into unexpected ICT use, co-creation and evaluation of new IT solutions.Although this approach is becoming more popular, there is little comparative and reflective work on its practical dynamics, problems and possibilities.In this study, we analyse two 4-year Living Lab projects in Lancaster, UK and Siegen, Germany within the domain of Social TV, and compare experiences.We focus on documenting the purposes, methods and user dynamics that affect the trajectory of such long-term research initiatives, focusing inter alia on the dynamics of researcher/user interaction and the developing issues of trust and managing expectations; emphasizing some often neglected ethical issues and the impact of users' individual characteristics and their role in the community dynamics of Living Labs. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS• Comparison and reflection of two 4-year Living Lab studies in domestic environments.• Investigation of dynamics of researcher-user interaction.• Emphasizing ethical issues of long-term Living Lab research projects.

Technological infrastructure at home is changing continuously and is becoming increasingly interconnected. Media devices, including the TV set, provide access to the Internet and offer manifold opportunities to consume media on demand. Additionally, personal devices, such as smartphones, also enable flexible consumption and sharing of media. Questions about how these technologies change the user's media usage and how these changes affect the social structure of a household, however, remain largely unanswered. In order to gain insight into the adoption of new technologies into daily routines, we explored these changes in respect of people's media usage in a qualitative long-term Living Lab study. We will present findings regarding personal routines, flexible integration of new devices into existing practices, influences on households as social systems and related issues in device access and collective use. We will highlight potentials and conflicts regarding device shifts and roles; restrictions in device access; social influences in the living room; and individual changes in media consumption.

Living Labs provide a research infrastructure for long-term user involvement in Participatory Design processes. Users take part in software co-creation during context analysis, for concept development, reflecting on early-stage prototypes and evaluations in the field. In this paper we describe lessons learned from our Living Lab in the area of home entertainment, with 27 participants from 16 households, over a 2.5 year period. We show that this kind of long-term participation of users involves various challenges over the lifetime of the project. We highlight several aspects that need to be considered carefully when setting up such a Living Lab, concerning the selection of participants, maintenance of participants' motivation, establishment of a trust relationship, and the coordination of collaboration.