Field Evaluation of Programmable Thermostats

Sachs, O.; Tiefenbeck, V.; Duvier, C.; Qin, A.; Cheney, K.; Akers, C.; Roth, K.

doi:10.2172/1219859

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 2 publications

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“…Inhabitants may be unaware, or lack the knowledge or confidence to interact with new controls presented to them in their home. In a 'real world' trial of programmable heating system thermostats carried out by Sachs et al (2012) the authors found that while the introduction of usable thermostatic controls on heating systems increased the ability of inhabitants to interact, educational interventions or other incentives were needed to release the potential for a successful interaction. In this trial, the high usability of a control itself was not enough to trigger interaction in the real world domestic situation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Service controls interfaces in housing: usability and engagement tool development

Baborska-Narożny

Stevenson

2018

Building Research & Information

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Domestic buildings are increasingly complex; saturated with services that need coherent control if design and inhabitants' goals are to be achieved. The evidenced inappropriate use of controls linked with performance gap suggests that effective methods for assessing the inhabitant relationship with control interfaces for services are needed within building performance evaluation and practice studies. The development of a bespoke domestic usability tool over two iterations is presented, demonstrating new insights into the relationship between design and inhabitant engagement with controls. Deep contextual development came from trialling the tool in four UK domestic case studies. Understanding the purpose of a control interface and inhabitant role was found to be a fundamental diagnostic for inhabitant engagement. The tool became a prompt for immediate action or further information seeking for a quarter of households involved in its application. However affordances and physical issues identified could not be addressed without major physical changes, which should have been picked up at the design and construction stage. Organisational learning based on the tool findings was triggered in one of four developers involved. The challenges for developing usability studies are discussed with recommendations provided for different actors in the housing and construction industry on how to progress these.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%