Chapter 10
Conducting Field Trials with Multiple Connected Households
Field trials are a common Human-Computer Interaction research method for evaluating systems and designs in the real context of their usage. Given the challenges in replicating domestic settings in a lab environment, field trials are commonly used for studying and evaluating domestic technologies. Yet field trials are not always easy to perform and they can be especially challenging when used to evaluate systems that connect multiple homes together. We explore field trials as a research method by describing the design and evaluation of Family Portals: a multi-home video media space that connects three families' homes in order to promote feelings of connectedness. We describe the challenges we faced when evaluating Family Portals in the field and the lessons we learned about conducting field trials with multiple connected households. These focus on prototype frailty and testing, system installation across multiple households, ownership and usage of the system, and managing the complexity of relationship dynamics within and between families.
