We are living in a golden age of information where computing and sensing technology collect and generate tremendous amounts of data and the Internet facilities data storage and manipulation by the masses. A growing area of interest is how to provide this data back to the consumer to improve awareness of some aspect of his/her life. This project investigates the use of always-on interactive displays (much like a wall clock) to support awareness with a particular focus on awareness of energy consumption in the home. The goal is to identify how such displays can be designed and effectively integrated into the fabric of home life to support awareness of energy consumption habits. Researchers will investigate several important aspects of integrating feedback devices into the home, including:
* The tradeoffs between aesthetics and utility * Data privacy considerations * The effect of such devices on home routines and vice versa * Supporting motivation and system adoption in a multi-inhabitant home
These issues are most effectively addressed by studying real people in real households. Thus, researchers will undertake user-centered methods to inspire, inform, and evaluate designs through fieldwork and long-term deployments of designs in real homes.
The results of this project will apply to not only energy consumption awareness, but more broadly to other areas where data feedback and reflection may promote personal awareness. Examples include supporting awareness of fitness and nutrition habits or feedback of activities of everyday life (medicating, sleeping, eating, etc.) for the elderly aging in place.
In this project, we set out to gain a better understanding of peoples' awareness of their energy consumption habits in the home and to explore the design space for an always-on electricity feedback device with an emphasis on visualization of electricity consumption. We focused on three particular types of households: older adults, students, and families. Our first study confirmed that individuals are not aware of their consumption levels or which appliances in their homes consume the most electricity. In the participatory design study, we followed up with these particular demographics to explore their particular preferences and ideas for an electricity feedback device. The diversity of designs produced by our participants was fantastic, ranging from ambient devices designed to fit into the home and promote awareness of electricity usage to data-centric views designed to facilitate exploration of particular sources of consumption. From these two studies, we concluded that designing such a device for the home presents tremendous challenges due to the complexity of the home itself and the differences in needs of members of a single household as well as differences in needs between household types. There is no one solution that will meet everyone's needs. We therefore set out to understand how visual feedback could be customized to the target user (or viewer) and along what dimensions that customization can/should occur. In our final study, we found that it is important to match the level-of-detail (i.e., complexity) of the visual representation to the complexity of the user's task in order to reduce errors and speed time to comprehension. We also found that when not matched properly, users have difficulty determining so. For example, many users were unable to determine when the visual representation shown to them did not provide enough information to answer the question posed to them. Finally, we also found that both personality traits and age have an effect on one's comprehension of visual representations.
