SmartEx: A Framework for Generating User-Centric Explanations in Smart Environments

TL;DR

SmartEx introduces a novel framework for generating personalized, context-aware explanations in smart environments, enhancing user understanding of complex system behaviors by moving beyond static, generic explanations.

Contribution

It presents the first technical solution and reference architecture for producing user-centric, granular explanations tailored to individual users and contexts in smart environments.

Findings

Feasibility demonstrated through scenario-based implementation

First to incorporate user-centric explanations in smart environments

Supports personalized and context-aware explanations

Abstract

Explainability is crucial for complex systems like pervasive smart environments, as they collect and analyze data from various sensors, follow multiple rules, and control different devices resulting in behavior that is not trivial and, thus, should be explained to the users. The current approaches, however, offer flat, static, and algorithm-focused explanations. User-centric explanations, on the other hand, consider the recipient and context, providing personalized and context-aware explanations. To address this gap, we propose an approach to incorporate user-centric explanations into smart environments. We introduce a conceptual model and a reference architecture for characterizing and generating such explanations. Our work is the first technical solution for generating context-aware and granular explanations in smart environments. Our architecture implementation demonstrates the feasibility of our approach through various scenarios.