Leonardo Ramirez

Sustainable energy practices at work: understanding the role of workers in energy conservation

Energy conservation has become a very relevant social issue. There is a growing body of knowledge in the literature focused on supporting consumers in reducing their personal carbon footprint in their domestic context. In the workplace, however, most of the research focuses on optimizing formalized production processes and investing in energy efficient equipment. This leaves the question open of the role of workers in energy conservation. To explore this question, and overcome this bias, we conducted a series of participatory action research studies in which we introduced new smart metering technologies in a large organization and observed their contribution in supporting sustainable energy practices at work. In the paper we discuss the opportunity and risks posed by using this technology to make energy practices more transparent.

Handy navigation in ever-changing spaces: an ethnographic study of firefighting practices

This paper presents an ethnographic study, conducted to gain an insight of the practices around navigation of firefighters on the first line of intervention. We argue that the common approach of looking only at the technical aspects is incomplete. We show instead, that navigation of firefighters in ever-changing spaces is a collective craft or art, where technology is only one of the relevant pieces, but not the only one. Therefore design should take a deep look at existing navigation practices of firefighters. In order to identify relevant work practices, we conducted our ethnographic study to find out patterns of navigation work and based on our findings, we provide an outline of how the navigation practices can be supported by ubiquitous computing.

Towards human-centered support for indoor navigation

This paper presents a new perspective for the design of indoor navigation support. In contrast to technology oriented approaches coming from Context Awareness research, we argue for a wider focus that complements the technical question of providing precise indoor location with the development of more effective navigation practices based on technology available today. Starting from research on indoor navigation conducted with the Paris Fire Brigade, we present two design concepts aimed at supporting firefighters in creating and finding their own paths, together with some of the design strategies that informed the creation of these concepts.

What People Do with Consumption Feedback: A Long-Term Living Lab Study of a Home Energy Management System

Oneofthegreatsocietalchallengesthatwefacetodayconcernsthemovetomoresustainablepatterns of energy consumption, reflecting the need to balance both individual consumer choice and societal demands. In order for this ‘energy turnaround’ to take place, however, reducing residential energy consumptionmustgobeyondusingenergy-efficientdevices:Moresustainablebehaviourandlifestyles are essential parts of future ‘energy aware’living.Addressing this issue from an HCI perspective, this paper presents the results of a 3-year research project dealing with the co-design and appropriation of a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) that has been rolled out in a living lab setting with seven households for a period of 18 months. Our HEMS is inspired by feedback systems in Sustainable Interaction Design and allows the monitoring of energy consumption in real-time. In contrast to existing research mainly focusing on how technology can persuade people to consume less energy (‘what technology does to people’), our study focuses on the appropriation of energy feedback systems(‘whatpeopledowithtechnology’)andhownewlydevelopedpracticescanbecomearesource for future technology design.Therefore, we deliberately followed an open research design. In keeping with this approach, our study uncovers various responses, practices and obstacles of HEMS use. We show that HEMS use is characterized by a number of different features. Recognizing the distinctive patterns of technology use in the different households and the evolutionary character of that use within the households, we conclude with a discussion of these patterns in relation to existing research and their meaning for the design of future HEMSs. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS • We developed an own Home Energy Management System (HEMS). • We rolled out our HEMS system in a living lab setting to seven households over a period of 18 months. • Our System provides feedback through TV, PC, smartphone and tablet-based interfaces. • This allowed us to explore ‘what people do with HEMS in daily life’. • We identify and discuss nine meaningful categories of appropriating HEMS. • Based on our results, we discuss potentials for the design of future HEMSs.

Help beacons: design and evaluation of an ad-hoc lightweight s.o.s. system for smartphones

We present the design and evaluation of a lightweight mobile S.O.S. system that facilitates ad-hoc communication between first responders and victims in emergency situations. Our approach leverages established protocols and standards in unforeseen ways to provide a platform supporting the creation of short-lived communication links. The system comprises two mobile applications: one victim application that allows the broadcasting of distress signals by a novel use of Wi-Fi SSIDs; and a responder application that allows first responders to discover and trace the people broadcasting the signals. The main difference of our system with other platforms enabling communication in crisis situations is that our system is independent from existing network infrastructure and runs on off-the-shelf, commercially available smartphones. We describe the results of our evaluation process in the context of both a design evaluation during a real-world emergency response exercise and of two user workshops in preparation for an upcoming large-scale exercise.

Uncovering practices of making energy consumption accountable: A phenomenological inquiry

Reacting to the discussion on global warming, the HCI community has started to explore the design of tools to support responsible energy consumption. An important part of this research focuses on motivating energy savings by providing feedback tools which present consumption metrics interactively. In this line of work, the configuration of feedback has been mainly discussed using cognitive or behavioral factors. This narrow focus, however, misses a highly relevant perspective for the design of technology that supports sustainable lifestyles: to investigate the multiplicity of forms in which individuals or collectives actually consume energy. In this article, we broaden this focus, by taking a phenomenological lens to study how people use off-the-shelf eco-feedback systems in private households to make energy consumption accountable and explainable. By reconstructing accounting practices, we delineate several constitutive elements of the phenomenon of energy usage in daily life. We complement these elements with a description of the sophisticated methods used by people to organize their energy practices and to give a meaning to their energy consumption. We describe these elements and methods, providing examples coming from the fieldwork and uncovering observed strategies to account for consumption. Based on our results, we provide a critical perspective on existing eco-feedback mechanisms and describe several elements for a design rationale for designing support for responsible energy consumption. We argue that interactive feedback systems should not simply be an end, but rather a resource for the construction of the artful practice of making energy consumption accountable.

Landmarke: an ad hoc deployable ubicomp infrastructure to support indoor navigation of firefighters

Indoor navigation plays a central role for the safety of firefighters. The circumstances in which a firefighting intervention occurs represent a rather complex challenge for the design of supporting technology. In this paper, we present the results of our work designing an ad hoc ubicomp infrastructure to support navigation of firefighters working in structure fires inside the zone of danger. We take a wider approach, complementing the technical questions with the development of effective navigation practices based on technology available today. We provide an overview of the complete design process, from the theoretical and empirical underpinnings to the construction and evaluation of three iterations of the platform. We report the results of our evaluation and the implications and tensions uncovered in this process, and we discuss the challenges and implications of it for the design of ubicomp for firefighters.

Letting tools talk: interactive technology for firefighting

In this work-in-progress report we present the results of a preliminary analysis of a set of fieldwork studies conducted in collaboration with a firefighter school and a firefighter brigade. To inspire the design of ubiquitous computing systems, we provide a description of the equipment used by firefighters, practices built upon them and a set of common properties.

The reconfiguration of triage by introduction of technology

Triage is the process of sorting patients by order of treatment necessity in large scale emergencies. Usually, a paper tag is attached to each patient containing their classification and the results of an initial, quick diagnosis. Several projects have aimed to electronically augment the process by using ubiquitous computing components. In this paper we present drawbacks of introducing technology to the process, which have not been discussed elsewhere, based on an extensive set of expert workshops discussing the employment of technology in triage with the aid of technology probes. Our main finding is that the common set of functionalities of electronic triage systems involves unwanted reconfiguration of triage processes. By presenting a set of implications for the design of these mobile technologies, we show how potential negative effects can be mitigated.

Designing for high expectations: balancing ambiguity and thorough specification in the design of a wayfinding tool for firefighters

Ambiguity has been identified as a useful tool for designing ubicomp systems. In the design of safety critical systems, however, the expectations for a system are particularly high, and goals of the technology are rigidly defined. In this context is not clear if open ended systems can still be used as a tool for design. In this paper we present a detailed account of the design process of an indoor wayfinding support tool for firefighters, in which ambiguity played a central role in driving the construction of the system. Based on an ongoing work covering more than a year of close collaboration with a heterogeneous team of project partners, we present some implications of using ambiguity for designing ubiquitous computing solutions in a domain that traditionally requires more formal specifications for the construction of technology.