Deconstructing Ambient Intelligence into Ambient Narratives: The Intelligent Shop Window

Producing intelligent environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of users and their environment on a large scale is difficult. On one hand, it is technologically very hard to mass produce a device so smart that it is capable of generating a truly personal ambient experience for each situational context, on the other hand, tailor-made solutions are often economically infeasible. In this paper we discuss a mass customization approach towards Ambient Intelligence that tries to balance variety and cost by breaking up an intelligent environment into small, interrelated modular fragments. Through interaction with their environment users assemble these fragments in a personal story that is experienced as Ambient Intelligence. We describe the requirements derived through a series of workshops with retailers and designers and illustrate the design of the physical hypermedia model and system. Using a test case, the intelligent shop window environment, we evaluate the feasibility of the approach.