  As our physical environments become ever-more connected, instrumented and
automated, it can be increasingly difficult for users to understand what is
happening within them and why. This warrants attention; with the pervasive and
physical nature of the IoT comes risks of data misuse, privacy, surveillance,
and even physical harm. Such concerns come amid increasing calls for more
transparency surrounding technologies (in general), as a means for supporting
scrutiny and accountability.
  This paper explores the practical dimensions to transparency mechanisms
within the consumer IoT. That is, we consider how smart homes might be made
more meaningfully transparent, so as to support users in gaining greater
understanding, oversight, and control. Through a series of three user-centric
studies, we (i) survey prospective smart home users to gain a general
understanding of what meaningful transparency within smart homes might entail;
(ii) identify categories of user-derived requirements and design elements
(design features for supporting smart home transparency) that have been created
through two co-design workshops; and (iii) validate these through an evaluation
with an altogether new set of participants. In all, these categories of
requirements and interface design elements provide a foundation for
understanding how meaningful transparency might be achieved within smart homes,
and introduces several wider considerations for doing so.
