Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Smart Home
Family IoT
Energy Practices
Adversarial Design
Household Adaptation
"You Can't Just Automate It": Negotiating and Sustaining a "Good" Family Life Through Energy Practices
🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the oversight in existing smart home designs regarding the dynamic intra-household negotiations surrounding pluralistic values such as energy conservation, comfort, and caregiving. Focusing on parent-child households in Taiwan, this work conducts qualitative research through in-home interviews and co-design workshops, informed by theoretical frameworks of proxemics and adversarial design. It introduces the concept of “situated sociotechnical adaptation,” distinguishing between collective and contestable interests to reveal the continuous adjustment mechanisms and uneven distributions inherent in domestic energy arrangements. Ultimately, this research advocates for a participatory and contestable paradigm for household Internet of Things (IoT) design, offering both theoretical insights and practical design directions for developing more adaptive and inclusive smart home systems.
📝 Abstract
This study examines how Taiwanese parent-child families negotiate a "good" family life through everyday energy use and imagine future smart homes that support it. We conducted in-home interviews and co-design sessions with 21 families, including 46 parents and children. We found that families pursued a good life through energy practices shaped by thrift, comfort, care, safety, and enjoyment. These arrangements were continually adapted and responded to changing bodies, schedules, people, and infrastructures. This adaptive work was unevenly distributed, which in turn shaped different smart-home imaginaries. Drawing on the lens of Nearby and adversarial design, we conceptualize adaptation as situated sociotechnical work through which families continually rework energy arrangements. We further distinguish collective goods from plural and contestable goods to show why family IoT must support shared values while preserving opportunities to question and revise household arrangements. We offer theoretical and design directions for more adaptive, participatory, and contestable family IoT.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Family IoT
Adversarial Design
Smart Home
Sociotechnical Work
Contestable Goods
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