Proactive Furniture Assembly

Printed handbooks, instructions, and even reference manuals all have a common faith: they are rarely used. And when we have to use them, we don't like them. Be it a laptop, a piece of furniture, or the omnipresent example of the VCR -- all come with a set of instructions and handbooks of which many are never unwrapped or even used. Whereas this is obviously an overstatement, it is quite true that many people rather ignore any printed instructions whenever they can or feel like it (Or do you remember using instructions lately?) -- at least initially.

One approach is to immerse the instructions themselves into the objects of interest or the environment. An interesting example is how printers present instructions: whenever a problem occurs they display just-in-time instructions for immediate assistance. Another example is the work of IBM called 'out of the box experience' where different steps of an assembly (for example of a laptop) are printed on paper and become visible whenever the user performs an action (such as opening the computer top). Instructions in case of an emergency (like the evacuation of an airplane) have obviously drawn considerable attention and are optimized to be unambiguous and understandable for a wide range of people including illiterates.

Those examples clearly show the advantage of the immersion of instructions into the environment and the objects of interest themselves. Nevertheless, instructions are still mostly static and unaware of the state of the environment and the user. What is needed is to bridge the gap between the virtual world and the real world including the objects of interest and the user in order to make instructions more dynamic and adaptable to the current situation. This is where ubiquitous computing comes into the picture since it has the potential to connect the virtual and the real world and therefore completely change the way we think about and use instructions.

By attaching computing devices and multiple sensors onto different parts of the assembly the system can recognize the actions of the user and determine the current state of the assembly. The system can suggest the next most appropriate action at any point in time. In an experimental case study with the IKEA PAX wardrobe we show the feasibility of the proposed approach. We discuss important issues and future directions are outlined.