User interaction for personalized total light management

ABSTRACT

Despite the potential energy savings of automatic lighting control in office buildings, findings show disappointing performance due to poor usability. To explore solutions with a potential to improve user satisfaction with these systems, an iterative user-centered design was done to propose personalized system behavior and an easy-to-use user interface (UI) for total light management (TLM). The steps included defining the semi-automatic system behavior that implicitly derives user lighting preferences from user interaction with the system. Four control options were evaluated in an expert review. Based on the received feedback a redesigned UI was subsequently evaluated as part of the TLM system in a Wizard-of-Oz study. The results showed that the UI offering direct control of lighting dimming level and the position of the blinds offered higher level of usability than the UI with indirect control in which a user defines the desired illuminance from a combination of artificial lighting and daylight.

KEYWORDS:

• Lighting
• office buildings
• occupant comfort
• control system
• usability engineering

Acknowledgements

This research was performed within the framework of the strategic joint research programme on Intelligent Lighting between TU/e and Philips. The team thanks Alexander Rosemann, Evert van Loenen and Juliëtte van Duijnhoven for their support of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tatiana Lashina

Tatiana Lashina is leading a team of experts working on innovations to support pregnant mothers in her role of Business Development Manager and Epic Owner within Philips Research.

Sanae van der Vleuten-Chraibi

Sanae van der Vleuten-Chraibi is responsible for the integration of UX research in product development and marketing in her role of UX and Outcome research specialist at Philips Healthcare Experience Solutions. Sanae received her PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology for her research in the domain of lighting in multi-user office environments.

Dzmitry Aliakseyeu

Dzmitry Aliakseyeu is leading innovation projects in his role of Principal UX Researcher at Signify. Dzmitry received his PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology for his research in the domain of human-computer interaction with tabletop systems.

Jolijn de Jongh-Teunisse

Jolijn de Jongh-Teunisse represents consumer values and needs within the Philips Avent product development in her role of Product Researcher.

Paul Shrubsole

Paul Shrubsole is leading innovation projects in his role of Senior Scientist at Philips Research. Paul received his PhD from Nottingham Trent University for his research in the domain of realtime 3D computer graphics.

Tess Speelpenning

Tess Speelpenning represents customer value and needs within the product development of Philips Mother & Child Care and Skin Care product portfolios in her role of Product Researcher.