Child-home interaction: Design and usability evaluation of a game-based end-user development for children

Initiative or control authority is an important challenge in smart environments, including smart homes. One of the solutions to this challenge is End-user Development (EUD). The EUD refers to defining customized rules by users to determine their desired behaviour and preferences in the format of trigger-action or event-condition-action for their smart home. But EUD rules need an understanding of mathematical logic; hence they are not understandable for general users including children. This paper proposes a user interface specifically designed for children to define EUD tasks in smart homes. The proposed UI was designed and evaluated in three iterations and had two main characteristics: gamification and 3D abstraction level for showing devices. The proposed UI is evaluated through an experiment by 32 participants aged 8–12 to measure efficiency, operability, perceived usability, enjoyment, and engagement. The experiment results show that game-based design improved usability by increasing efficiency and operability metrics. Also, based on the survey result, it improved enjoyment, engagement, and perceived usability.