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Thermal comfort in shared workplaces is often contested and impacts productivity, wellbeing, and energy use. Yet, subjective and situated comfort experiences are rarely captured and engaged with. In this paper, we explore roles for digital surveys in capturing and visualising subjective experiences of comfort in situ for comfort management. We present findings from a 3-week field trial of our prototype system called ThermoKiosk, which we deployed in an open plan, shared office with a history of thermal comfort complaints. In interviews with occupants and members of facilities management, we find that the data and interactions can play an important role in initiating dialogue to understand and handle tensions, and point to design considerations for more systematically integrating them into workplace comfort practices.

In this alt.chi paper, we reflect on #CHIversity; a grassroots campaign highlighting feminist issues related to diversity and inclusion at CHI2017, and in HCI more widely. #CHIversity was operationalised through a number of activities including: collaborative cross-stitch and 'zine' making events; the development of a 'Feminist CHI Programme'; and the use of a Twitter hashtag '#CHIversity'. These events granted insight into how diversity discourses are approached within the CHI community. From these recognitions we provide examples of how diversity and inclusion can be promoted at future SIGCHI events. These include fostering connections between attendees, discussing 'polarizing' research in a conservative political climate, and encouraging contributions to the growing body of HCI literature addressing feminisms and related subjects. Finally, we suggest how these approaches and benefits can translate to HCI events extending beyond CHI, where exclusion may routinely go undetected.

Audits are commonly carried out by facilities managers (FMs) to quantify the sustainability and performance of the buildings they manage, informing improvements to infrastructure for resource and cost savings, and assessing compliance with standards and legislation. The scope for what can be audited is limited by available infrastructure. In this article, we investigate the utility of a flexible sensor toolkit to enhance existing energy auditing practices. We present findings from a qualitative study with FM and student auditor participants from 3 organisations. Our study covers how these toolkits were used and integrated into auditing practices within these organisations, and the opportunities and issues for resource management that arose as a result. We conclude with design implications for toolkits to support sensor-augmented audits, make recommendations towards a deployment protocol for sensor toolkits used in this context, and develop broader considerations for how future standards and policies might be adapted to leverage this potential.

Smart buildings offer an opportunity for better performance and enhanced experience by contextualising services and interactions to the needs and practices of occupants. Yet, this vision is limited by established approaches to building management, delivered top-down through professional facilities management teams, opening up an interaction-gap between occupants and the spaces they inhabit. To address the challenge of how smart buildings might be more inclusively managed, we present the results of a qualitative study with student occupants of a smart building, with design workshops including building walks and speculative futuring. We develop new understandings of how student occupants conceptualise and evaluate spaces as they experience them, and of how building management practices might evolve with new sociotechnical systems that better leverage occupant agency. Our findings point to important directions for HCI research in this nascent area, including the need for HBI (Human-Building Interaction) design to challenge entrenched roles in building management.