In recent years, the ratio of dual income families has increased remarkably. On the other hand, dual income families tend to have various problems for housework, e.g. looking after children, sharing housework, finding time for communication, etc, because they have limited time at home. In this context, it should be very useful for them if they can share housework in a well-balanced way, so in this paper, we develop a housework sharing support system for dual income families to reduce their burden. Our system supports sharing information in a family and knowledge about housework, recommending appropriate housework for that time, and reporting how much family members contribute to housework in order to promote their motivation for the work. The system itself is built in a tablet PC so that it can be used like a whiteboard that we often use to share information with family members. We verified the usefulness of our system by conducting experiments in which several communities with different life-styles used our system in their everyday lives over a period of weeks.

We propose a direct anthropomorphization method that agentize an artifact by attaching anthropomorphic parts to it. There are many studies to provide information to users using spoken directions and gestures via anthropomorphic agents such as CG agents and communication robots. Our method directly anthropomorphize the artifact through robotic bodily parts shaped like those of humans. The anthropomorphized artifact using these parts provides information to people by giving them spoken directions and expressing themselves through body language. Using these devices, people are able to accept more attentions to the artifact, than using anthropomorphic CG or robot agents. We conduct an experiment to verify a difference between explanation of fuctions of the artifact using direct anthropomorphization method and explanation of them using independent humanoid-agent "Robovie". The results of participants' questionnaires and gazes during the experiment indicate that they noticed to the target artifact and memorized functions using direct anthropomorphization method more than using independent humanoid-agent.

As for digital electric appliances, peripheral functions are likely to be shoved to the 'out-of-the-way' corners of menu hierarchy because flagship functions have precedence of visibility and accessibility than they do. Those functions are therefore likely to cause various breakdowns in human-machine communication when users are exploring a particular function of them from among a lot of menu items organized in hierarchy. In order to analyze the factors of and to find some solutions to such breakdowns, we apply a couple of analysis methods, i.e., "communicative breakdown" analysis and "information scent" analysis, to user behaviors of menu selection. This paper explains our analyses of user behaviors when users tried to operate a DVD recorder with many functions they had never used. Another menu system experimentally developed based on the Scatter/Gather algorithm is then introduced and experimented in terms of communicative breakdown and information scent.

This paper presents a practical study on developing a smart user interface for supporting human works of adjusting complex mechanical systems, focusing on the actual automation of computer-controlled multihead weighers. Based upon the theoretical framework of Ecological Interface Design, the inherent functional structure of the work domain is clarified in terms of means-end relations, thereby visualized on the screen displays to encourage the human operator's "direct" perception of the meanings or values of his/her practicable actions to the automated processes. A comparative experiment using test users with a variety of skill levels is conducted to examine the effectiveness of this redesigned user interface. The result confirms that the well-considered user interface can facilitate unskilled operators appropriately evaluating and effectively responding to their immediate work situations, which will thus take the place of the experts' knowledge and insights on the works as one of the distributed resources for cognition.

This paper proposes a method for evaluating quantitatively the degree of handedness of a person by using the haptic virtual reality technology. A handedness evaluation system has been developed consisting of two PHANTOM OMNI haptic devices, a graphics display, and a computer for virtual space calculation and control. To observe the skillfulness of two hands of a person, three virtual tasks have been developed: positioning task, force control task, and manipulation task. Ten male subjects aged from 22 to 23 years old have taken the test. The obtained performance data from these tasks have been analyzed using the factor analysis. Since the obtained factor scores for the right and left hands of each subject can be regarded as the skillfulness of the right and left hand, it is proposed to define the degree of handedness of the subject based on the difference of these factor scores. The proposed degree of handedness and the result of conventional LQ method did not contradict to each other. The calculated degrees of handedness, however, differ largely among the subjects. From this result, it is expected that the proposed method can be useful for detailed and quantitative evaluation of handedness.

Many assistive technologies have been developed since it was enforced that law for promotion of research, development and distribution of technical aids and equipments. However, users didn't use so much developed equipments. For one reason, there is difference between needs from users and design concepts from engineers. Therefore, methodology based on user-centered design is indispensable for development of assistive technologies. In this study, it proposed a framework for development of assistive technologies by collaboration with users, included group interview method as qualitative research. A group interview of powered-wheelchairs' users was held. Information from users was categorized into "need", "situation" and "supposition" defined as item. In order to analyze and assess them, it was applied the extracted item to structural diagram of graph theory. As the result, it was more effective methodology to clarify factors and concepts of assistive technologies.

A tactile interface is expected to be effective information display for driver assistance systems. This paper describes the characteristics of tactile apparent movement as produced by seat vibrations. Clear apparent movement was observed when using seat vibration stimuli. We investigated how the inter-stimulus distance, stimulus duration, and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) influence the judgment of tactile apparent movement. We found that apparent movement increases as a power of any increase in the stimulus duration and inter-stimulus interval (ISI). Our results showed that a 150-mm inter-stimulus distance produced a strong, intense sensation of apparent movement with a wider effective stimulus duration.

In order to find out whether there is any difference in sound localizability between vision impaired and sighted individuals, we carried out the sound localization tasks of the subject's frontal azimuth by using three different sound source pointing methods in a semi-anechoic dark room. Twenty vision impaired and twenty normally sighted subjects participated in this experiment. The three pointing methods employed were (1) directing by the face, (2) directing by the body trunk on a revolving chair and (3) indicating a tactile direction cue horizontally placed in front of the subject position. Seven sound emitters were arranged at various angles (0°to ±80°) from the subject's midline and 2.0 m from the subject. The result showed that, in each angle, the difference between the vision impaired and sighted subjects were not very large at the center (0°). However, the localization performance of the vision impaired subjects was significantly better than that of the sighted subjects especially in the periphery (-80°and-X80°). In the whole frontal area (-80°to +80°from midline), the vision impaired subjects showed smaller deviations than the sighted subjects without regard to pointing methods. The present results indicated that the sound localizability of the vision impaired at the frontal azimuth is superior to the sighted particularly in the periphery.