knowledge! In fact, anyone external to the study may switch equipment off, move it around, or tamper with it. Visually intriguing equipment, such as flashing LEDs, can pose a choking hazard for pets and children [ 3] and entice curious little hands (and paws!). Mishaps like this are bound to happen with research in the wild and there is little you can do to prevent them. However, it may be worth asking participants at the start of the study to note any times and dates that devices were interfered with. You should also label your sensors with the names of the devices they are monitoring to help return them to their desired place if things get swapped, particularly if your study is looking at specific devices. Finally, it can also help to do a bit of data analysis prior to the last visit with a home, so that participants can help resolve any mysteries arising from unplanned sensor reconfiguration.

 

PARTICIPANT INTERACTION Researcher roles. Similar to when a plumber, electrician, or other tradesperson visits your home, you the researcher are the visitor that disrupts the day-to-day routine of the participants. This attracts attention and queries from participants and requires you to have different roles throughout the deployment, two of which recurred often for us: the technical expert and the entertainer. For the former, participants often watch what you are doing and ask questions along the way. While they observe your subset of technological skills, they sometimes begin to see you as the new IT guru: “Please can you help me remove a notification on my iPhone?” “Please can you fix my CD player?” As the participant is already helping you out by participating in your research, you may feel obligated to help them. For the role of the entertainer, friendly (yet distracting) encounters and conversations may develop with participants while you are trying to concentrate on deploying the equipment. Such meetings can involve young children within the household giving you one of their toys to exclaim at every 30 seconds—ignoring them would just seem cruel. Cats, dogs, and other pets may also be interested in your presence in the home, leading them to jump at you or stand on your equipment for attention; this is a particular difficulty for researchers

R

with allergies. Like Goulden et al.’s recommendation for ensuring that both technical and social researchers attend in-the-wild studies for interdisciplinary work [ 6], we suggest that two or more team members are present when possible at household studies so that one researcher can focus on deploying the equipment while another can pay attention to the householders.

Power relationships. When
deploying equipment in family
homes, the presence of child-parent
relationships and the power conflicts
embedded within them become
apparent. Parents like to know what
their children are doing and ask
for reassurance through the data
collected within deployments. One
mother asked us about her daughter’s
extensive device and Internet use; this
created a moral dilemma. While you
are obligated to protect the privacy
of all your participants (including
children), guardians have a duty of
care and therefore their concern
is understandable. It is difficult to
prepare for such inquisitiveness,
particularly if guardians are
persistent. However, fully informing
the participants at the beginning of
a study that no data will be shared
or discussed with other inhabitants
could help manage participant
expectations. This would potentially
head off confrontation if one particular
participant does not want to share their
data with other household members.

Researcher deploying an energy-monitoring sensor behind a television in a home.

Researcher deploying an energy-monitoring sensor behind an office desk in a home.