Abstract — Ambient computing is one of the more
significant recent advances in computer-human interactions.
With the ambient intelligence paradigm, computers become
embedded in our natural surroundings. As they are contextsensitive
and adaptable, they better provide smart services to
humans. But ambient computing requires communication
between several heterogeneous components that are not
supposed to communicate each other. This paper describes
how we use a workflow to facilitate the design of multichannel
interfaces for ambient computing. Our results
show that different devices (such as Wiimote, multi-touch
screen, telephone, etc.) can be managed in order to
activate real things (such as lamp, fan, robot, webcam,
etc.). A smart digital home case study illustrates a possible
implementation of our approach and shows how it allows
redesigning easily some parts of the ambient system just
by modifying the workflow.

Keywords — Pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing
ambient intelligence, multi-channel interaction, workflow,
smart digital home.