'Electric City': Uncovering Social Dimensions and Values of Sharing Renewable Energy through Gaming

With the advent of Smart Energy Systems and Energy Cooperatives in the Netherlands and elsewhere, sharing of renewable energy within neighbourhoods is likely to gain wide prominence in the near future. Today the concept of 'Energy Sharing' is often limited to householders 'selling' their surplus of locally generated energy to the energy grid....

Post-occupancy monitoring of two flats in Madrid: Development and assessment of a mixed methods methodology

Recent research has shown large differences between the expected and the actual energy consumption in buildings. The differences have been attributed partially, to the assumptions made during the design phase of buildings when simulation methods are employed. More accurate occupancy profiles on building operation could help to carry out more...

Enabling "new" practices of renewable energy sharing: A cross-cultural approach

Local generation, distribution and consumption of renewable energy within neighborhood is an emerging application context for the concept of `sharing'. This position paper introduces a cross-cultural approach to enable `new' social practices of renewable energy sharing in neighborhoods. The approach is being developed based on ongoing field...

Applying experience reports in design education: Challenges and ideas

What if both design students and design tutors could have real-time insights into how students actually experience their design process rather than after-the-fact reflections? And what if these insights could be applied in ways that would contribute to more in-depth learning experiences? This paper addresses these questions in describing the...

Interior design features predicting satisfaction with office workspace privacy and noise

Background and aim - Lack of privacy is a prominent issue in contemporary offices. This study aimed to identify interior design features that jointly influence satisfaction with privacy and noise in the office workspace, and estimate their predictive power. This knowledge can inform strategic workplace design. Methods - Eight design features...

Motivation to self-report: Capturing user experiences in field studies

AAL- technology acceptance through experience

Despite substantial research and development of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies, their acceptance remains low. This is partially caused by a lack of accounting for users' needs and values, and the social contexts these systems are to be embedded in. Participatory design has some potential to overcome these issues, but still a high...

Pick-a-mood; development and application of a pictorial mood-reporting instrument

This paper presents ‘Pick-A-Mood’ (PAM), a cartoon-based pictorial instrument for reporting and expressing moods. The use of cartoon characters enables people to unambiguously and visually express or report their mood in a rich and easy-to-use way. PAM consists of three characters that each express eight different mood states, representing four...

Problem-based teaching of interaction design to fresh minds: Lessons from integrating experiential interactive prototyping in a course on interaction design and user experience research

EthnoVis: Developing an interactive visualization as a designerly tool and process of longitudinal data analysis and communication

In this paper, we report on an interactive visualization that served multiple purposes and diverse roles in a research-through-design (RtD) study. The visualization is part of the study on the sociocultural factors that shape energy exchanges between households. It showcases an ethnographic data combined with quantitative logs collected for<br/...

Interior design features predicting satisfaction with office workspace privacy and noise

Background and aim – Lack of privacy is a prominent issue in contemporary offices. This study aimed to identify interior design features that jointly influence satisfaction with privacy and noise in the office workspace, and estimate their predictive power. This knowledge can inform strategic workplace design.<br/>Methods – Eight design features...

Integrating technology, education and practice to change energy behaviours in schools

Schools are learning communities where multiple stakeholders can collaborate to learn about energy efficiency, including via formal curricula, non-formal learning and day-to-day practices. Furthermore, by improving energy literacy among building occupants, the energy efficiency of schools can be improved. However, turning schools into learning...

Workplace affordances of social well-being: a conceptual framework

The prolonged working from home during the recent pandemic has increased awareness of the social function of the office: employees missed informal social interaction with co-workers, face-to-face meetings, and spontaneous encounters. If the trend of hybrid working persists, one of the main functions of the physical office will be to support face...

Energy Citizenship in New Energy Concepts

It is assumed by the projects demonstrating Positive Energy District (PED) concepts in cities across Europe that citizens should want and need to be involved in the development of new energy concepts, such as PEDs for these concepts to be deployed successfully. Six different PED research and innovation projects are investigating the types and...