Interaktion mit Medienfassaden : Design und Implementierung interaktiver Systeme für große urbane Displays

Media facades are a prominent example of the digital augmentation of urban spaces. They denote the concept of turning the surface of a building into a large-scale urban screen. Due to their enormous size, they require interaction at a distance and they have a high level of visibility. Additionally, they are situated in a highly dynamic urban environment with rapidly changing conditions, which results in settings that are neither comparable, nor reproducible. Altogether, this makes the development of interactive media facade installations a challenging task. This thesis investigates the design of interactive installations for media facades holistically. A theoretical analysis of the design space for interactive installations for media facades is conducted to derive taxonomies to put media facade installations into context. Along with this, a set of observations and guidelines is provided to derive properties of the interaction from the technical characteristics of an interactive media facade installation. This thesis further provides three novel interaction techniques addressing the form factor and resolution of the facade, without the need for additionally instrumenting the space around the facades. The thesis contributes to the design of interactive media facade installations by providing a generalized media facade toolkit for rapid prototyping and simulating interactive media facade installations, independent of the media facade’s size, form factor, technology and underlying hardware.Die wachsende Zahl an Medienfassenden ist ein eindrucksvolles Beispiel für die digitale Erweiterung des öffentlichen Raums. Medienfassaden beschreiben die Möglichkeit, die Oberfläche eines Gebäudes in ein digitales Display zu wandeln. Ihre Größe erfordert Interaktion aus einer gewissen Distanz und führt zu einer großen Sichtbarkeit der dargestellten Inhalte. Medienfassaden-Installationen sind bedingt durch ihre dynamische Umgebung nur schwerlich vergleich- und reproduzierbar. All dies macht die Entwicklung von Installationen für Medienfassaden zu einer großen Herausforderung. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Entwicklung interaktiver Installationen für Medienfassaden. Es wird eine theoretische Analyse des Design-Spaces interaktiver Medienfassaden-Installationen durchgeführt und es werden Taxonomien entwickelt, die Medienfassaden-Installationen in Bezug zueinander setzen. In diesem Zusammenhang werden ausgehend von den technischen Charakteristika Eigenschaften der Interaktion erarbeitet. Zur Interaktion mit Medienfassaden werden drei neue Interaktionstechniken vorgestellt, die Form und Auflösung der Fassade berücksichtigen, ohne notwendigerweise die Umgebung der Fassade zu instrumentieren. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit verbessern darüber hinaus die Entwicklung von Installationen für Medienfassaden, indem ein einheitliches Medienfassaden-Toolkit zum Rapid-Prototyping und zur Simulation interaktiver Installationen vorgestellt wird, das unabhängig von Größe und Form der Medienfassade sowie unabhängig von der verwendeten Technologie und der zugrunde liegenden Hardware ist

Social networking sites as platforms to persuade behaviour change in domestic energy consumption

This MSc project addresses the following research question – “Can online social networks such as Facebook facilitate the motivation and behaviour change to reduce energy consumption in the home?” An investigation into the role of social interaction in social networks provides evidence to support the research question. The project undertook an extensive literature review and identified a gap in current knowledge regarding energy monitoring systems that are socially enabled. A participatory design workshop was then held to generate initial concept ideas and prototype interfaces. A final system using the Facebook application platform was designed and implemented by the author called Wattsup. An experimental design was then developed to evaluate the system which involved recruiting eight households for an eighteen day trial. This was supplemented with a qualitative study of comments generated by users and also in semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that the users of the Wattsup energy application integrated in Facebook assisted the participants in reducing their energy consumption. Types of energy information displayed in the application were both live and historical measurements as well as Co2 emissions, publicly viewable to participants and others on their personal Facebook friends list. Public viewing was implemented for comparison purposes as well as introducing peer pressure and competition amongst like-minded friends. Further analysis of the participant’s social interaction activity with the energy application revealed higher awareness of their energy usage behaviour was present. Positive effects of the results were lower energy costs and fewer Co2 emissions released upon the environment from the participants by using the socially enabled energy application. To test the theory of a positive effect of social interaction on domestic energy consumption, two Facebook energy applications were developed by the author. One of the applications contained socially enabled features, while the other displayed only the participant’s personal energy usage with no social features or capability to view other participant’s energy information