Jeremy Spaulding

Evaluation of Desirability Assessment Techniques for Tunable Solid State Lighting Applications

Tunable Solid State Lighting (SSL) systems based on Light-Emitting Diode (LED) technology allow us to supply customizable lighting for both colored and white light applications. This means that lighting can now be tailored to meet user preferences and expectations for practically any environment or application. The ability to measure difficult-to-quantify emotional impressions is necessary to better understand how people will likely respond to lighting applications and may be useful in providing practical, easily discussable results to designers, and development teams creating such systems. Borrowing from techniques developed by user experience researchers in the software industry, this study provides an examination of different methodologies used to assess highly subjective responses for residential lighting applications. Overall, the two new word selection methods yielded results that were consistent with the classical methods. The word selection exercises provided a rich data set useful for deeper insight understanding general differences in the overall impression.

Exploration of Gesture-Based Control for Tunable Solid State Lighting Applications

In a shift from most traditional lighting systems found in the home or office, Solid Sate Lighting (SSL) systems base on Light-Emitting Diode (LED) technology are being created with increasing levels of control over light output, including color tunability. With increased complexity and control comes the need to improve the user experience. Tunability in solid state lighting means that nearly every aspect of a light source can be tailored to any specific application. Use of gesture-based interfaces is becoming commonplace and has enabled the gaming and mobile computing industries to create user experiences that previous methods of control simply could not provide. The purpose of this design and development activity was to explore fully tunable (RGBY) SSL system control using a free space 3D gesture control system. There were many lessons learned from this exercise from both a technical and use perspective. This research and development activity resulted in the successful development of a gesture-based tunable lighting concept and better understanding and refining this type of system.

‘Wizard of Oz’ Study for Controlling Living Room Lighting

Solid state lighting is changing the way humans experience artificial lighting and enhancing the possibilities of control over our built environments. The goal for this research study was to provide insight for designing human centered controls for tunable solid state lighting for the familiar residential application of living room lighting using a ‘Wizard of Oz’ methodology. Eight internal subjects and twenty externally sourced subjects experienced controlling the lighting for common scenarios such as reading, watching TV, having a party, saving a scene and recalling a scene. Three Android based mobile device applications were prepared for voice-only, gesture-only, and voice and gesture combined control. One or more “wizards” were employed to close the control loop between the subject’s verbal commands and gestures and the tunable solid state lighting settings. Voice clips and sensor data were recorded on the phone, video and audio were captured via a wall mounted camera, and observed and documented. The subjects were aware of the audio, video, data, and note taking but not the “wizard” control. The data was analyzed to extract the unique ways subjects used to control the lighting, think-out-loud information and interview answers were analyzed to develop the mental models behind their control attempts and their thought processes used to reach their high level task goals. Conclusions drawn from this research help shape design decisions for tunable solid state lighting solutions and next-generational controls.

Human Factors Study on Light Modulation in Indirect Office Lighting

Our goal is to provide insight into the human experience of light modulation to help achieve the specific application goals of indirect office lighting. This paper explains experimental development and design, and results from a human factors experiment for an indirect office lighting application. 18 subjects experienced working for a day in a 4x4 meter office equipped with an extended cove, housing LED light modules, providing indirect lighting that varied at 2 light modulation levels and a no modulation control condition. The light modulated at a frequency of 100 Hz due to the electronic design of the rectification of the AC line voltage. The results show that subjects had little to no response for the 29% light modulation level and the 0% control. Considerable undesirable response was measured with 100% modulation. In addition we see considerable variation from subject to subject. The type of information contained in this paper is used in making decisions on design trade-offs by product development teams.