HeyTAP: Bridging the Gaps Between Users' Needs and Technology in IF-THEN Rules via Conversation

In the Internet of Things era, users are willing to personalize the joint behavior of their connected entities, i.e., smart devices and online service, by means of IF-THEN rules. Unfortunately, how to make such a personalization effective and appreciated is still largely unknown. On the one hand, contemporary platforms to compose IF-THEN rules adopt representation models that strongly depend on the exploited technologies, thus making end-user personalization a complex task. On the other hand, the usage of technology-independent rules envisioned by recent studies opens up new questions, and the identification of available connected entities able to execute abstract users' needs become crucial. To this end, we present HeyTAP, a conversational and semantic-powered trigger-action programming platform able to map abstract users' needs to executable IF-THEN rules. By interacting with a conversational agent, the user communicates her personalization intentions and preferences. User's inputs, along with contextual and semantic information related to the available connected entities, are then used to recommend a set of IF-THEN rules that satisfies the user's needs. An exploratory study on 8 end users preliminary confirms the effectiveness and the appreciation of the approach, and shows that HeyTAP can successfully guide users from their needs to specific rules.