Towards In-Air Gesture Control of Household Appliances with Limited Displays

Recent technologies allow us to interact with our homes in novel ways, such as using in-air gestures for control. However, gestures require good feedback and small appliances, like lighting controls and thermostats, have limited, or no, display capabilities. Our research explores how other output types can be used to give users feedback about their gestures, instead, allowing small devices to give useful feedback. We describe the Gesture Thermostat, a gesture-controlled thermostat dial which gives multimodal gesture feedback

Towards usable and acceptable above-device interactions

Gestures above a mobile phone would let users interact with their devices quickly and easily from a distance. While both researchers and smartphone manufacturers develop new gesture sensing technologies, little is known about how best to design these gestures and interaction techniques. Our research looks at creating usable and socially acceptable above-device interaction techniques. We present an initial gesture collection, a preliminary evaluation of these gestures and some design recommendations. Our findings identify interesting areas for future research and will help designers create better gesture interfaces

Evaluating User Experience Satisfaction of LED Desk Lamp using FAHP-FCE Approach

Technology development has effectively guided the design and development of light-emitting diode (LED) desk lamps, and the design and development of desk lamps are closely related to users. However, studies on user satisfaction when using desk lamps are still under explored. To this end, this paper proposes a satisfaction evaluation method that combines the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE). This research results could provide an effective theoretical and practical reference for the experience design of LED desk lamps to improve and meet users' needs, thereby potentially improving the design of LED desk lamps for better customer satisfaction

Exploring the effects of contextual factors on home lighting experience

Background Although lighting increasingly penetrates our everyday life due to technology advancement, little is known about how people interact with lighting and how contextual factors impact on the experience. Thus, this study attempted to reveal how two contextual factors (the level of concentration required for pleasant lighting use and social interaction) could influence the manipulation of lighting parameters, particularly focusing on the major factors of lighting such as illuminance, color temperature, and hue. Methods To understand of the interaction between contextual factors and lighting variables, an experiment was conducted. 10 singles and 10 couples had to manipulate lighting variables such as intensity and colorin five everyday situations for pleasant lighting experience. Results The result of the experiment showed that illuminance, color temperature and hue are influenced by the degree of concentration, but only partially influenced by social factors. The findings could provide a better understanding of manipulating lighting variables in terms of use context with design practitioners. Conclusions The overall findings of the study indicate that illuminance, color temperature, and hue are significantly dependent upon the level of concentration required in at-home lighting use, and also have only a partial dependence on social effect. This implies that although we assumed that people have their personal lighting preferences, their preferences can be largely dependent on the degree of concentration required for at-home pleasant lighting use. Hence, there are common patterns among people in manipulating lighting parameters, which are less dependent on personal differences. © Archives of Design Researc

Designing for multi-user interaction in the home environment: Implementing social translucence

© 2016 ACM. Interfaces of interactive systems for domestic use are usually designed for individual interactions although these interactions influence multiple users. In order to prevent conflicts and unforeseen influences on others we propose to leverage the human ability to take each other into consideration in the interaction. A promising approach for this is found in the social translucence framework, which was originally described by Erickson & Kellogg. In this paper, we investigate how to design multi-user interfaces for domestic interactive systems through two design cases where we focus on the implementation of social translucence constructs (visibility, awareness, and accountability) in the interaction. We use the resulting designs to extract design considerations: interfaces should not prescribe behavior, need to offer sufficient interaction alternatives, and previous settings need to be retrievable. We also identify four steps that can be integrated in any design process to help designers in creating interfaces that support multi-user interaction through social translucence

Evaluating interface characteristics for shared lighting systems in the office environment

IoT developments make shared systems, such as lighting systems, increasingly connected. From an interaction perspective, this offers opportunities for personal control. Especially for lighting, the benefits of personal control have been underlined by research. However, how to design interfaces that realise these potential benefits is much less investigated. This paper presents a long-term qualitative study in which three interfaces for a shared lighting system are evaluated by 17 people working in an open plan office. The interfaces are designed to vary on a number of characteristics, including the distribution over space, interaction modality, and sequence of interaction. Based on the results, we provide new insights in the impact of interface characteristics on lighting use and experience. We find, i.a., that having an interface on a personal multi-purpose device or on a central interface solely dedicated to lighting, influences whether people make individual or more collective lighting adjustments and decisions

Evaluating interface characteristics for shared lighting systems in the office environment

IoT developments make shared systems, such as lighting systems, increasingly connected. From an interaction perspective, this offers opportunities for personal control. Especially for lighting, the benefits of personal control have been underlined by research. However, how to design interfaces that realise these potential benefits is much less investigated. This paper presents a long-term qualitative study in which three interfaces for a shared lighting system are evaluated by 17 people working in an open plan office. The interfaces are designed to vary on a number of characteristics, including the distribution over space, interaction modality, and sequence of interaction. Based on the results, we provide new insights in the impact of interface characteristics on lighting use and experience. We find, i.a., that having an interface on a personal multi-purpose device or on a central interface solely dedicated to lighting, influences whether people make individual or more collective lighting adjustments and decisions

Effects of resolution of lighting control systems

Advances in lighting technologies have spurred sophisticated lighting control systems (LCSs). To conserve energy and improve occupants’ wellbeing, LCSs have been integrated into sustainable buildings. However, the complexity of LCSs may lead to negative experiences and reduce the frequency of their use. One fundamental issue, which has not been systematically investigated, is the impact of control resolution (the smallest change produced by an LCS). In an ideal LCS, the resolution would be sufficiently fine for users to specify their desired lighting conditions, but the smallest change would be detectable. Thus, the design of optimal control systems requires a thorough understanding of the detectability and acceptability of differences in illuminance, luminance and colour. The control of colour is complicated by the range of interfaces that can be used to facilitate colour mixing. Four psychophysical experiments investigated the effect of LCS resolution. The first two experiments explored the effect of resolution in white light LCSs on usability and energy conservation. The results suggest that, in different applications, LCSs with resolutions between 14.8 % and 17.7 % (of illuminance) or 26.0 % and 32.5 % (of luminance) have the highest usability. The third experiment evaluated the usability of three colour channel control interfaces based on red, green, blue (RGB), hue, saturation, brightness (HSB) and opponent colour mixing systems. Although commonly used, the RGB interface was found to have the lowest usability. The fourth experiment explored the effect of hue resolution, saturation resolution and luminance resolution on the usability. Generally, middle range resolutions, which are approximately between three and five times the magnitude of the just noticeable difference (JND), for both hue and saturation were found to yield the greatest usability. The interaction between these three variables was characterised. Findings from this research provide a deeper understanding of the fundamental attribute of control resolution and can guide the development of useful and efficient lighting control systems

The integration of hotel interactive lighting systems to support users' visual comfort and activity needs

This study explores the standards of interactive lighting systems in the hospitality industry, specifically those spaces found in hotels, to enhance the experience for customers. Case study analysis was selected as the research methodology to evaluate the lighting quality and capabilities of three commercial hotels in New Orleans as they may inform new hotel interactive lighting capabilities. The study considers three aspects: first, the lighting source, second, the lighting control system, and third, the lighting system structure. Lighting sources are evaluated as they pertain to universal design characteristics. The study focuses on principles 2 and 4 of the seven universal design principles. Principle 2, Flexibility in Use, considers whether the light can be adjusted according to the different needs of users. Principle 4, Perceptible Information, evaluates whether the lighting system can provide sufficient lighting required to support the activities within the space such as route guidance and legibility of important information (Connell et al., 1997). Lighting control is evaluated from the aspect of the user interface considering minimal switching to more state-of-the-art technology to control the lighting quality within a given space. In the lighting structure, the lighting system gradually removes the traditional lighting line based on the single point structure into a wireless chip based on the systematic regional module structure, reducing the difficulty of adjustment, and overall enhancing the efficiency of lighting control. This paper suggests a design standard for interactive lighting systems in hotels based on human behavior patterns and perception levels