Margherita Antona

• Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas

This paper describes the motivation, framework, concepts, method, implementation, and results of the HCII2023 Design Cafe, a dedicated participatory highly interactive design workshop held in Copenhagen in July 2023. Motivated by the ubiquitous challenges our world is facing, this initiative had the goal to explore six main issues from an interdisc...

This paper introduces the concept of an intelligent greenhouse and intelligent seedbed as innovative solutions to enhance precision agriculture in small-scale cultivation settings. The core motivation behind this project lies in the need to improve cultivation practices, by reducing resource input and adopting an overall more efficient approach, wh...

In this work, we present our approach towards reviving events, historical figures and artefacts in the context of a physical museum exhibition organized by the National Historical Museum in the Old Parliament House as part of the celebration of 200 years since the beginning of the Greek Revolution. In this context, several interactive systems were...

Widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is substantially affecting the human condition in ways that are not yet well understood. Negative unintended consequences abound including the perpetuation and exacerbation of societal inequalities and divisions via algorithmic decision making. We present six grand challenges for the...

Smart Cities have gradually shifted their focus from just being technology hubs that simply collect information to be consumed by their citizens, to large scale interactive environments with their users being inherently considered as vital elements of the city. Therefore, the overall interaction paradigm has evolved to promote active participation...

Intelligent everyday environments are expected to empower their inhabitants, assisting them in carrying out their everyday tasks, but also ensuring their well-being and prosperity. In this regard, the accessibility of an intelligent environment is of utmost importance to ensure that it fulfills user needs, but also that it is usable and useful for...

Intangible Culture Heritage (ICH) is defined as the collection of oral traditions and expressions such as epics, fairy tales, stories, arts, social practices, rituals and celebrations, events, knowledge, and practices related to nature and the universe, traditional medicine, folk medicine, traditional handcrafts, as well as personal experiences rel...

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) has been established as the dominant paradigm for efficiently transferring skills from human teachers to robots. In this context, the Federated Learning (FL) conceptualization has very recently been introduced for developing large-scale human-robot collaborative environments, targeting to robustly address, among ot...

Cultural-heritage research has created a vast amount of information regarding heritage objects and sites. At the same time, recent efforts on the digitization of cultural heritage have provided novel means of documenting tangible cultural resources including digital images, videos, audio testimonies, and 3D reconstructions. Furthermore, ethnographi...

This chapter focuses on describing how the human-centered design (HCD) process can be revisited and expanded in an artificial intelligence (AI) context, proposing a methodological framework for putting the human in the loop. It explores how exactly the ‘human-in-the loop’ paradigm can be pursued and relevant core AI concepts and approaches. The cha...

The concept of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) provides a vision of the Information Society where the emphasis is on greater user-friendliness, more efficient services support, user-empowerment, and support for human interactions. User-centered design involves two fundamental elements: multidisciplinary teamwork; and a set of specialized methods for acq...

The three-volume set CCIS 1419, CCIS 1420, and CCIS 1421 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. HCII 2021 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publicatio...

The three-volume set CCIS 1419, CCIS 1420, and CCIS 1421 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. HCII 2021 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publicatio...

The three-volume set CCIS 1419, CCIS 1420, and CCIS 1421 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. HCII 2021 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publicatio...

While the body of research focusing on Intelligent Environments (IEs) programming by adults is steadily growing, informed insights about children as programmers of such environments are limited. Previous work already established that young children can learn programming basics. Yet, there is still a need to investigate whether this capability can b...

While the body of research focusing on Intelligent Environments (IEs) programming by adults is steadily growing, informed insights about children as programmers of such environments are limited. Previous work already established that young children can learn programming basics. Yet, there is still a need to investigate whether this capability can b...

‘User Experience’ (UX) is a term that has been established in HCI research and practice, subsuming the term ‘usability’. UX denotes that interaction with a contemporary technological system goes far beyond usability, extending to one’s emotions before, during, and after using the system and cannot be defined only by studying the fundamental usabili...

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) constitutes one of the most robust methodologies for constructing efficient cognitive robotic systems. Despite the large body of research works already reported, current key technological challenges include those of multi-agent learning and long-term autonomy. Towards this direction, a novel cognitive architecture...

Room-sized immersive environments and interactive 3D spaces can support powerful visualizations and provide remarkable X-reality experiences to users. However, designing and developing applications for such spaces, in which user interaction takes place not only by gestures, but also through body movements is a demanding task. At the same time, cont...

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) has been established as the dominant paradigm for efficiently transferring skills from human teachers to robots. In this context, the Federated Learning (FL) conceptualization has very recently been introduced for developing large-scale human-robot collaborative environments, targeting to robustly address, among ot...

High stress levels and sleep deprivation may cause several mental or physical health issues, such as depression, impaired memory, decreased motivation, obesity, etc. The COVID-19 pandemic has produced unprecedented changes in our lives, generating significant stress, and worries about health, social isolation, employment, and finances. To this end,...

With the emergence of Ambient Intelligence, many challenges have surfaced concerning the equipment of physical classrooms with technologically enhanced artefacts. When installed into an environment, such artefacts should reduce their overall footprint and blend harmoniously into their surroundings. In order to accomplish such unobtrusiveness, the a...

Emerging intelligent environments are considered to offer significant opportunities to positively impact human life, both at an individual and at a societal level, and in particular to provide useful means to support people in their daily life activities and thus improve well-being for everybody, especially for older people and for people with limi...

This two-volume set constitutes the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2021, held as part of the 23rd International Conference, HCI International 2021, held as a virtual event, in July 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 36 HCII 2021 proceedings volume...

This two-volume set constitutes the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2021, held as part of the 23rd International Conference, HCI International 2021, held as a virtual event, in July 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 36 HCII 2021 proceedings volume...

This two-volume set CCIS 1498 and CCIS 1499 contains the late breaking posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 39 HCII 2021 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5222 s...

This two-volume set CCIS 1498 and CCIS 1499 contains the late breaking posters presented during the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held virtually in July 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 39 HCII 2021 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5222 su...

This book constitutes late breaking papers from the 23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021, which was held in July 2021. The conference was planned to take place in Washington DC, USA but had to change to a virtual conference mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 5222 individuals from academia, research inst...

Learning from Demonstration (LfD) constitutes one of the most robust methodologies for constructing efficient cognitive robotic systems. Current key challenges in the field include those of multi-agent learning and long-term autonomy. Towards this direction, a novel cognitive architecture for multi-agent LfD robotic learning is introduced in this p...

The proliferation of Internet of Things devices and services and their integration in everyday environments led to the emergence of intelligent offices, classrooms, conference, and meeting rooms that adhere to the paradigm of Ambient Intelligence. Usually, the type of activities performed in such environments (i.e., presentations and lectures) can...

This paper explores a new approach to a teacher’s workstation in the context of the intelligent classroom of the 21st century. Nowadays, the term “intelligent” is not only associated with efforts to incorporate smart/mobile devices into the learning experience (distance learning, educational games/apps, etc.), but also to equip the physical environ...

A basic understanding of problem-solving and computational thinking is undoubtedly a benefit for all ages. At the same time, the proliferation of Intelligent Environments has raised the need for configuring their behaviors to address their users’ needs. This configuration can take the form of programming, and coupled with advances in Augmented Real...

Heritage Crafts (HCs) involve craft artefacts, materials, and tools and encompass craftsmanship as a form of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Intangible HC dimensions include dexterity, know-how, and skilled use of tools, as well as identity and traditions of the communities in which craftsmanship is, or was, practiced. HCs are part of history and hav...

Sleep is important for many vital functions. Unfortunately, many people suffer from sleep-related problems, which have negative consequences on sleep quality and therefore on quality of life. Considering the important health benefits of a good night’s sleep, it is crucial to investigate technological solutions that promote and improve sleep hygiene...

In the domain of education, an Intelligent Classroom that employs Ambient Intelligence technologies can not only improve learning and student performance, but also support educators with the various educational tasks, such as lecturing, course preparation and classroom management. Given that the board is one of the key artifacts of any classroom, u...

This two-volume set of LNCS 12188 and 12189 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2020, held as part of the 22nd International Conference, HCI International 2020, which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2020. The conference was held virtually due t...

The three-volume set CCIS 1224, CCIS 1225, and CCIS 1226 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2020.* HCII 2020 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepte...

The three-volume set CCIS 1224, CCIS 1225, and CCIS 1226 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2020.* HCII 2020 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepte...

The chapter "“Developing an Interactive Tabletop Mediated Activity to Induce Collaboration by Implementing Design Considerations Based on Cooperative Learning Principles” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book constitutes the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which was held in July 2020. The conference was planned to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to change to a virtual conference mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From a total of 6326 submi...

This book constitutes late breaking papers from the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which was held in July 2020. The conference was planned to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to change to a virtual conference mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From a total of 6326 submissions, a total of 1439 paper...

This book constitutes the poster papers presented during the 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which was held in July 2020. The conference was planned to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to change to a virtual conference mode due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From a total of 6326 submissions, a total of 1...

The ICS-FORTH Ambient Intelligence (AmI) Programme is a long-term horizontal interdisciplinary RTD Programme aiming to develop pioneering human-centric intelligent technologies and environments which seamlessly support everyday human activities and enhance well-being through human-technology symbiosis. Acknowledging the omnipotent impact of technol...

In this article, we present results obtained from field trials with the Hobbit robotic platform, an assistive, social service robot aiming at enabling prolonged independent living of older adults in their own homes. Our main contribution lies within the detailed results on perceived safety, usability, and acceptance from field trials with autonomou...

The emergence of the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm and the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services unveiled new potentials for the domain of domestic living, where the line between “the computer” and the (intelligent) environment becomes altogether invisible. Particularly, the residents of a house can use the living roo...

Over the years, research efforts to create a “smarter” classroom resulted in developing and employing distance learning, educational games, and intelligent tutoring systems. More recent approaches have revolved around the domains of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and Internet of Things (IoT) with the objective to enhance traditional classroom equipment...

Due to the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the emergence of the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm, the need to facilitate the interaction between the user and the services that are integrated in Intelligent Environments has surfaced. As a result, Conversational Agents are increasingly used in this context, in order to achiev...

Intelligent Conversational Agents are already employed in different scenarios, both in commerce and in research. In particular, they can play an important role in defining a new natural interaction paradigm between them and humans. When these Intelligent Agents take a human-like form (embodied Virtual Agents) in the virtual world, we refer to them...

This paper explores the general concept of the classroom of the future from a technological perspective, and proposes a set of indicative key facilities that such an environment should incorporate. Over the years, there has been an abundance of related research work aiming to build a “smarter” classroom, initially incorporating distance learning, e...

In today's fast-paced and demanding society, more and more people are suffering from stress-related problems; however, intelligent environments can be equipped with facilities that assist in keeping it under control. This paper presents CaLmi, a system for Intelligent Homes that aims to reduce the stress of its residents by: (a) monitoring its leve...

ABSTRACT This article aims to investigate the Grand Challenges which arise in the current and emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies, coupled with increased and widened societal needs, as well as individual and collective expectations that HCI, as a discipline, is called upon to address...

This paper presents the research conducted towards developing the affective output channel of an assistive robot, called RAMCIP, targeted to elderly users with mild cognitive impairments (MCI) or early stages of Alzheimer Disease (AD). An animated screen allowing the robot to express emotions through facial expressions has been developed, along wit...

Physical paper, in its various forms (e.g. books, leaflets, catalogues), is extensively used in everyday activities, despite any advancements in digital technology and ICT. Inspired by the popularity of this medium, several research efforts have envisioned and pursued a new era of interactive paper, however several challenges still remain to be add...

Current technological advancements offer many ways of enhancing disabled peoples’ access to cultural heritage environments. A new generation of social computing technologies and systems is changing the way in which we access cultural heritage, facilitating the inclusion of socially isolated groups of people. Under this perspective, this paper aims...

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services and their integration in intelligent environments creates the need for a simple yet effective way of controlling and communicating with them. Towards such a direction, this work presents ParlAmI, a conversational framework featuring a multimodal chatbot that permits users to create...

This book constitutes the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2019, which took place in Orlando, Florida, in July 2019. The total of 1274 papers and 209 posters included in the 35 HCII 2019 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5029 submissio...

This two-volume set constitutes the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2019, held as part of the 21st International Conference, HCI International 2019, which took place in Orlando, FL, USA, in July 2019. The total of 1274 papers and 209 posters included in the 35 HCII 2019 proce...

Public interaction displays contribute to upgrading the quality of public spaces since they attract many users and stimulate social interaction. In this paper, BubbleFeed is presented, a system for visualizing RSS news from multiple sources in public spaces. RSS news headlines are displayed inside virtual interactive bubbles ascending from the bott...

Ambient Intelligence constitutes a new human-centered technological paradigm, where environments are oriented towards anticipating and satisfying the needs of their inhabitants. In this context, evaluation becomes of paramount importance. This paper presents UXAmI Observer, an automated user experience evaluation tool for Ambient Intelligence envir...

Biometrics refer to unique measurable characteristics and information regarding individual’s health, physical or mental condition and can be used to uniquely authenticate or verify a person’s identity. They can be sorted in physiological such as fingerprints, palm print, face recognition, iris recognition, retina and DNA and behavioral such as typi...

The paper examines the use of technology as a means for the inclusion of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) students in mainstream K-12 schools, covering the publications of the last decade. A systematic search of databases was carried out to locate theoretical and empirical studies investigating technologies as auxiliary or supporting tools for the in...

Game design process creates goals, rules, and challenges to define a game that produces desirable interactions among its participants. Modeling the way in which players interact with the game requires among others the definition of game rules, plot, connection between player and the game, etc. ACTA (ACTivity Analysis) is a general purpose finite st...

The emergence of Intelligent Classrooms, and in particular classrooms equipped with facilities for identifying the students’ attention levels, has raised the need for appropriate student-friendly tools that not only facilitate application hosting, but also acts as the means to re-engage inattentive students in the educational process. This work pre...

Social computing constitutes a new computing paradigm in an interdisciplinary research community which will strongly influence informatics systems and applications in the years to come. Indeed, from a social perspective, considerable interest in examining the influences of Social Computing (SC) for Social Inclusion (SI) arises from researchers and...

This paper presents an Ambient Intelligence infrastructure that fuses state-of-the-art technologies and related applications with digital cultural resources to deliver interactive and immersive user encounters through on-site Virtual Exhibitions (VEs) which respond to the demands of ‘new museology’. The practical exploitation of the concept is pres...

The Tourism Office of the city of Heraklion is a truly original facility that provides visitors with novel ways to access information through the use of modern technologies and innovative interactive systems developed by ICS-FORTH. This paper presents the innovative technologies employed at the tourist information office in order to enhance the inf...

The proliferation of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) devices and services and their integration in smart environments creates the need for a simple yet effective way of controlling and communicating with them. Towards that direction, the application of the Trigger – Action model has attracted a lot of research with many systems and applications having b...

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services and their integration in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) Environments revealed a new range of roles that TVs are expected to play so as to improve quality of life. This work introduces AmITV, an integrated multimodal system that permits end-users to use the TV not only as a traditional e...

We present the robot developed within the Hobbit project, a socially assistive service robot aiming at the challenge of enabling prolonged independent living of elderly people in their own homes. We present the second prototype (Hobbit PT2) in terms of hardware and functionality improvements following first user studies. Our main contribution lies...

The emergence of Intelligent Classrooms and in particular classrooms that are equipped with appropriate infrastructure for identifying the students’ attention levels, has raised the need for appropriate educator-friendly tools that facilitate monitoring and management of these educational environments. This paper presents two such systems: LECTORvi...

This two-volume set LNCS 10907 and 10908 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2018, held as part of HCI International 2018 in Las Vegas, NV, USA, in July 2018. The total of 1170 papers and 195 posters included in the 30 HCII 2018 proceedings volumes was ca...

This two-volume set LNCS 10907 and 10908 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, UAHCI 2018, held as part of HCI International 2018 in Las Vegas, NV, USA, in July 2018. The total of 1170 papers and 195 posters included in the 30 HCII 2018 proceedings volumes was ca...

This paper presents LECTOR, a system that helps educators in understanding when students have stopped paying attention to the educational process and assists them in reengaging the students to the current learning activity. LECTOR aims to take advantage of the ambient facilities that “smart classrooms” have to offer by (i) enabling educators to emp...

It is almost inevitable that during a course, students will get distracted either by internal or external stimuli. Introducing engaging activities into the main lecture and changing pedagogies within a class period has remarkable effects on students' concentration levels. This paper presents LECTORstudio, an authoring tool that enables educators to...

This paper discusses technology acceptance in the context of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environments. Determining what would make a technology acceptable by users was widely recognized as a significant field of research since the seventies. Ever since several models have been developed, while recent advances in technology have led to increased rese...

'Future Designers' is an interactive and participative crash course that aims to introduce to children the concepts and practice of creativity, design, and design thinking. The course targets multiple learning styles and intelligences, combining various learning approaches and tools, including lecturing (using a variety of media such as images, vid...

This paper presents a user experience study of interaction with printed maps for providing digitally augmented tourism information. The Interactive Maps system has been implemented based on an interactive printed matter framework which provides all the necessary components for developing smart applications that offer printed matter interaction, and...

The vision of the connected home has gradually evolved from a purely research domain to an emerging market with substantial year-over-year growth. A modern smart home is expected to incorporate a wide range of connected devices and artificial services, while its users are expected to manage multiple places simultaneously (e.g., primary residence, o...

This paper presents a hybrid approach towards addressing conversational interruptions when interacting with a virtual agent to program the intelligence of a smart environment. The AmI Solertis approach integrates existing HCI strategies to address task switching with modelling of conversational dialogues and introduces the notion of run-time interr...