Informing user understanding of smart systems through feedback

Recent advances in microprocessing and low power radio technologies have catalyzed the transition of smart technologies from the domain of researchers and enthusiasts to everyday consumers. This new wave of smart devices, and the systems they form, marks a significant step towards Weiser's vision of ubiquitous computing and offers users a wealth of new and exciting opportunities. However, smart technologies are inherently complex and without careful design can prove complicated and confusing for users with no specific knowledge of the underpinning technologies. A poor understanding has the potential to inhibit user experience and may result in the abandonment of technologies which otherwise could bring real benefits to users.While a considerable body of work exists examining how confusion arising from complexity can be addressed, this work largely focuses on traditional heuristic systems. The non-deterministic nature of some smart technologies and the capacity for the sophisticated interconnected processes they employ to mask the relationship between system inputs and outcomes exacerbate the challenges examined in prior work. There is therefore a need to investigate how these challenges can be overcome for users of smart systems in particular.This thesis reports a series of five user studies, conducted under both controlled conditions and in the field. In particular, we examine how feedback can be used to inform user understanding of sensor based smart systems. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis we observe and evaluate over 145 participants interacting with sensor based smart systems. From our findings we identify a number of design implications and highlight the pitfalls of poor and uninformed design

Connecting the Things to the Internet: An Evaluation of Four Configuration Strategies for Wi-Fi Devices with Minimal User Interfaces

The availability of low-power Wi-Fi radio modules opens up opportunities to leverage the existing prevalent Wi-Fi infrastructure for large-scale trials and deployments of Ubicomp technology. In this paper we address the challenge of supporting end-users, especially when they are not technical experts, in connecting new low-power, low-cost Wi-Fi devices with very minimal UIs to an existing, secure Wi-Fi infrastructure. We report two usability studies through which 30 participants, with no formal technical training, compared 4 alternative configuration techniques, selected based on cost and consumption constraints, and on adoption in off-the-shelf products. Through an analysis of success rate and causes of failure, our results indicate that two techniques are noticeably more usable than others. These are a web-based configuration mechanism, where users connect to an access point on the Wi-Fi device, and one that makes use of a standard audio cable to connect a smartphone to the device to be configured

Sensor Configuration Dataset

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Evaluating the effect of feedback from different computer vision processing stages: a comparative lab study

Computer vision and pattern recognition are increasingly being employed by smartphone and tablet applications targeted at lay-users. An open design challenge is to make such systems intelligible without requiring users to become technical experts. This paper reports a lab study examining the role of visual feedback. Our findings indicate that the stage of processing from which feedback is derived plays an important role in users' ability to develop coherent and correct understandings of a system's operation. Participants in our study showed a tendency to misunderstand the meaning being conveyed by the feedback, relating it to processing outcomes and higher level concepts, when in reality the feedback represented low level features. Drawing on the experimental results and the qualitative data collected, we discuss the challenges of designing interactions around pattern matching algorithms

Dataset: Evaluating the Effect of Feedback from Different Computer Vision Processing Stages

Dataset supports: J. Kittley-Davies, A. Alqaraawi, R. Yang, E. Costanza, A. Rogers, and S. Stein. 2019. Evaluating the Effect of Feedback from Different Computer Vision Processing Stages: A Comparative Lab Study. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings (CHI 2019), May 4&ndash;9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland UK. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300273</span

The effect of behavioural interventions on energy conservation in naturally ventilated offices

This paper investigates the effects of behavioural interventions on energy conservation in naturally ventilated offices. Our aim is to inform building managers, environmental consultants, and social scientists on the effectiveness of low-cost, easy-to-implement interventions aimed at reducing energy waste and carbon emissions in a setting where individuals do not have direct financial gain and have low awareness of the environmental impact of their actions. The interventions consist of three types of emails with different information content aimed at encouraging recipients not to leave the windows of their office open overnight or during weekends. Our results show that these interventions are effective in promoting energy savings, as the percentage of windows left open by treated occupants is typically halved compared to a control group. We find that the impact of the treatment is stronger when we provide specific information about the energy waste of the building where the email recipients work or when we show them how their behaviour differs from that of their peers. Moreover, our results show that positive behavioural changes are still observed a few weeks after the interventions are terminated, thus suggesting that such interventions do not act only as temporary “cues” which are easily forgotten by recipients

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 automatically diagnose 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, 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

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 automatically diagnose 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, 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