As networks move outside professionally-managed environments to end-users become tasked with deploying, managing, securing, and troubleshooting their networks. Evidence shows that end-users cannot manage networks, and their rejection of these technologies represents a significant barrier to the adoption of advanced applications. This research will lower the barrier, by demonstrating how the challenges of human-network interaction must be solved with new technical approaches. Through empirical methods, we will produce datasets detailing the challenges, the needs of the users who both manage and live with such networks, and the opportunities for network design. We will develop an initial architecture that centralizes many network functions. This research will extend this architecture and deploy and evaluate it in people?s homes. The results will produce sound, generally-applicable principles for more usable network design. These principles will be particularly applicable to contexts where no formal network administrator is present.
Our work benefits society in three distinct ways. Usable home networking is on the critical path for computing research innovation. Research results will teach the next generation of engineers how to design usable networking. The integration of usability concerns into the core of computing reflects the growing diversity of careers in IT, and opens up the possibility of increasing the participation of women and minorities in computing.
