Ambient intelligence and multimodality

Abstract

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) scenarios place strong emphasis on the fact that interaction takes place through natural interfaces, in such a way that people can perceive the presence of smart objects only when needed. As a possible solution to achieving relaxed and enjoyable interaction with the intelligent environments depicted by AmI, the ambient could be equipped with suitably designed multimodal interfaces bringing up the opportunity to communicate using multiple natural interaction modes. This paper discusses challenges to be faced when trying to design multimodal interfaces that allow for natural interaction with systems, with special attention to speech-based interfaces. It describes an application that was built to serve as a test bed and to conduct evaluation sessions in order to ascertain the impact of multimodal natural interfaces on users and to assess their usability and accessibility. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.