Camera-based window-opening estimation in a naturally ventilated office

Naturally ventilated offices enable users to control their environment through the opening of windows. Whilst this level of control is welcomed by users, it creates risk in terms of energy performance, especially during the heating season. In older office buildings, facilities managers usually obtain energy information at the building level. They are often unaware or unable to respond to non-ideal facade interaction by users often as a result of poor environmental control provision. In the summer months, this may mean poor use of free cooling opportunities, whereas in the winter space heating may be wasteful. This paper describes a low-cost, camera-based system to diagnose automatically the status of each window (open or closed) in a facade. The system is shown to achieve a window status prediction accuracy level of 90–97% across both winter and summer test periods in a case study building. A number of limitations are discussed including winter daylight hours, the impact of rain, and the use of fixed camera locations and how these may be addressed. Options to use this window-opening information to engage with office users are explored

Energy Advisors at Work: Charity Work Practices to Support People in Fuel Poverty

ABSTRACT We present an ethnographic study of energy advisors working for a charity that provides support, particularly to people in fuel poverty. Our fieldwork comprises detailed observations that reveal the collaborative, interactional work of energy advisors and clients during home visits, supplemented with interviews and a participatory design workshop with advisors. We identify opportunities for Ubicomp technologies that focus on supporting the work of the advisor, including complementing the collaborative advice giving in home visits, providing help remotely, and producing evidence in support of accounts of practices and building conditions useful for interactions with landlords, authorities and other third parties. We highlight six specific design challenges that relate the domestic fuel poverty setting to the wider Ubicomp literature. Our work echoes a shift in attention from energy use and the individual consumer, specifically to matters of advice work practices and the domestic fuel poverty setting, and to the discourse around inclusive Ubicomp technologies

Demonstrating Interaction: The Case of Assistive Technology

Technology 'demos' have become a staple in technology design practice, especially for showcasing prototypes or systems. However, demonstrations are also commonplace and multifaceted phenomena in everyday life, and thus have found their way into empirical research of technology use. In spite of their presence in HCI, their methodical character as a research tool has so far received little attention in our community. We analysed 102 video-recorded demonstrations performed by visually impaired people, captured in the context of a larger ethnographic study investigating their technology use. In doing so, we exhibit core features of demonstrational work and discuss the relevance of the meta-activities occurring around and within demonstrations. We reflect on their value as an approach to doing HCI research on assistive technologies, for enabling shared understanding and letting us identify opportunities for design. Lastly, we discuss their implications as a research instrument for accessibility and HCI research more broadly

Human-Centred Smart Buildings: Reframing Smartness Through the Lens of Human-Building Interaction

PhD ThesisSmart buildings backed by data and algorithms promise reduced energy use and increased value for businesses and occupants. Yet, this has typically been considered from an engineering and systems perspective. Given increasing integration of sensing and ubiquitous computing technologies in modern built environments, a growing HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) and Human-Building Interaction (HBI) community has begun to advocate for the human-centred design of building technologies. This dissertation argues that there is a need for an inclusive, socially just and sustainable HBI agenda, to enable smarter buildings and facilities management. Deconstructing ‘smart’ rhetoric within HCI/HBI discourse and highlighting the values and ethics underpinning it, I argue that existing approaches to ‘smartness’ privilege automation and efficiency over the needs of human occupants. I undertake a qualitative inquiry into the roles of data and digital technologies in human-centred smart buildings through three case studies: i) How retrofitted environment sensors facilitate smarter energy auditing practices. I contribute a methodology for using sensor toolkits in auditing, technical design of the BuildAX sensing platform, and insights into sensoraugmented audits and how future standards might support these. ii) How data and digital technologies foster collective experiences of thermal comfort for office workers. I contribute a data elicitation interview method, design of the ThermoKiosk experience survey system, and considerations for integrating office tensions into workplace comfort management. iii) How HBI can support agency and participation in the everyday management and adaptation of a contemporary smart building. I contribute a ‘building walks’ method to elicit conversations on the future of building technologies, new understandings of how student occupants conceptualise and evaluate spaces, and how buildings of the future might better enable occupant agency. Through these, I contribute a re-framing of smartness to be more human-centred, including concerns for collaboration, inclusion, and human decision-making which does not consider occupants a ‘problem’ to be solved. The results of the case studies are synthesised into a set of six principles for the design of technology within human-centred smart buildings, re-grounding the field of HBI in the philosophy of environmental and social justice

INTERACT 2015 Adjunct Proceedings. 15th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 14-18 September 2015, Bamberg, Germany

INTERACT is among the world’s top conferences in Human-Computer Interaction. Starting with the first INTERACT conference in 1990, this conference series has been organised under the aegis of the Technical Committee 13 on Human-Computer Interaction of the UNESCO International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). This committee aims at developing the science and technology of the interaction between humans and computing devices. The 15th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - INTERACT 2015 took place from 14 to 18 September 2015 in Bamberg, Germany. The theme of INTERACT 2015 was "Connection.Tradition.Innovation". This volume presents the Adjunct Proceedings - it contains the position papers for the students of the Doctoral Consortium as well as the position papers of the participants of the various workshops