Using visual analytics to develop situation awareness in astrophysics

We present a novel collaborative visual analytics application for cognitively overloaded users in the astrophysics domain. The system was developed for scientists who need to analyze heterogeneous, complex data under time pressure, and make predictions and time-critical decisions rapidly and correctly under a constant influx of changing data. The Sunfall Data Taking system utilizes several novel visualization and analysis techniques to enable a team of geographically distributed domain specialists to effectively and remotely maneuver a custom-built instrument under challenging operational conditions. Sunfall Data Taking has been in production use for 2 years by a major international astrophysics collaboration (the largest data volume supernova search currently in operation), and has substantially improved the operational efficiency of its users. We describe the system design process by an interdisciplinary team, the system architecture and the results of an informal usability evaluation of the production system by domain experts in the context of Endsley's three levels of situation awareness

Coffee maker patterns and the design of energy feedback artefacts

Smart electricity meters and home displays are being installed in people’s homes with the assumption that households will make the necessary efforts to reduce their electricity consumption. However, present solutions do not sufficiently account for the social implications of design. There is a potential for greater savings if we can better understand how such designs affect behaviour. In this paper, we describe our design of an energy awareness artefact – the Energy AWARE Clock – and discuss it in relation to behavioural processes in the home. A user study is carried out to study the deployment of the prototype in real domestic contexts for three months. Results indicate that the Energy AWARE Clock played a significant role in drawing households’ attention to their electricity use. It became a natural part of the household and conceptions of electricity became naturalized into informants’ everyday language

Smart Surrogate Widgets for Direct Volume Manipulation

Interaction is an essential aspect in volume visualization, yet common manipulation tools such as bounding boxes or clipping plane widgets provide rather crude tools as they neglect the complex structure of the underlying data. In this paper, we introduce a novel volume interaction approach based on smart widgets that are automatically placed directly into the data in a visibility-driven manner. By adapting to what the user actually sees, they act as proxies that allow for goal-oriented modifications while still providing an intuitive set of simple operations that is easy to control. In particular, our method is well-suited for direct manipulation scenarios such as touch screens, where traditional user interface elements commonly exhibit limited utility. To evaluate out approach we conducted a qualitative user study with nine participants with various backgrounds.acceptedVersio

The LED Paradox: How Light Pollution Challenges Experts to Reconsider Sustainable Lighting

In the 21st century, the notion of “sustainable lighting” is closely associated with LED technology. In the past ten years, municipalities and private light users worldwide have installed light-emitting diodes in urban spaces and public streets to save energy. Yet an increasing body of interdisciplinary research suggests that supposedly sustainable LED installations are in fact unsustainable, because they increase light pollution. Paradoxically, blue-rich cool-white LED lighting, which is the most energy-efficient, also appears to be the most ecologically unfriendly. Biologists, physicians and ecologists warn that blue-rich LED light disturbs the circadian day-and-night rhythm of living organisms, including humans, with potential negative health effects on individual species and whole ecosystems. Can the paradox be solved? This paper explores this question based on our transdisciplinary research project Light Pollution—A Global Discussion. It reveals how light pollution experts and lighting professionals see the challenges and potential of LED lighting from their different viewpoints. This expert feedback shows that “sustainable LED lighting” goes far beyond energy efficiency as it raises complex design issues that imply stakeholder negotiation. It also suggests that the LED paradox may be solved in context, but hardly in principle

An attitude-based reasoning strategy to enhance interaction with augmented objects

This paper describes a mobile-based system to interact with objects in smart spaces, where the offer of resources may be extensive. The underlying idea is to use the augmentation capabilities of the mobile device to enable it as user-object mediator. In particular, the paper details how to build an attitude-based reasoning strategy that facilitates user-object interaction and resource filtering. The strategy prioritizes the available resources depending on the spatial history of the user, his real-time location and orientation and, finally, his active touch and focus interactions with the virtual overlay. The proposed reasoning method has been partially validated through a prototype that handles 2D and 3D visualization interfaces. This framework makes possible to develop in practice the IoT paradigm, augmenting the objects without physically modifying them