Principal Investigator Howard Shrobe
Co-investigator Kimberle Koile
To build workspaces that effectively support people in everyday work situations, one needs to focus on both the technology and the physical environment in which the work takes place. In building the intelligent workspace, we are doing just that. Working from scenarios we developed, we are focusing on three areas of research. First, we are exploring the use of mobile furniture to create a dynamically reconfigurable workspace: as the physical arrangement of the space changes, the technology supporting the space should accommodate accordingly. Secondly , we are focusing on tools to enable this sort of dynamic reconfiguration: we are developing novel computer vision and other sensing technologies for inferring activities in a space. With knowledge of the activities in which a person is engaged, an intelligent workspace can offer relevant assistance. The third area of research focuses on the study of how people use an intelligent workspace such as the one we are building. We plan to conduct workplace studies by having people use the space for extended periods of time, thus allowing us to evaluate the work and to engage users in an iterative design and development cycle.