A critical review of user studies on healthy smart homes

Considerable research has been conducted on smart services and technologies over the past decades, and the realization of smart environments has been one of the important research themes in housing studies. However, there is a lack of evaluation of the effects of those technologies on user experience from a cognitive perspective. This paper reviews the evaluation methods adopted in user studies of healthy smart homes. The review of user studies would enable the consolidation of knowledge to develop appropriate evaluation strategies for investigating user experience of smart services and technologies. Through an exhaustive search on contents pages of articles, different strategies for user studies were examined that span a range of experimental settings and analysis methods. These strategies can potentially work together in complementary ways to provide insights into user experience of healthy smart homes. The review highlighted research issues on user experience to be addressed for smart environments, giving valuable insights on cognitive paradigms to develop guide for smart services and technologies, which would ultimately encourage user satisfaction and foster sensibility.