Oliver Bates

Understanding adaptive thermal comfort: new directions for UbiComp

In many parts of the world, mechanical heating and cooling is used to regulate indoor climates, with the aim of maintaining a uniform temperature. Achieving this is energy-intensive, since large indoor spaces must be constantly heated or cooled, and the difference to the outdoor temperature is large. This paper starts from the premise that comfort is not delivered to us by the indoor environment, but is instead something that is pursued as a normal part of daily life, through a variety of means. Based on a detailed study of four university students over several months, we explore how Ubicomp technologies can help create a more sustainable reality where people are more active in pursuing and maintaining their thermal comfort, and environments are less tightly controlled and less energy-intensive, and we outline areas for future research in this domain.

Accounting for energy-reliant services within everyday life at home

Researchers in pervasive and ubiquitous computing have produced much work on new sensing technologies for disaggregating domestic resource consumption, and on designs for energy-centric interventions at home. In a departure from this, we employ a service-oriented approach, where we account for not only the amount of resources that specific appliances draw upon, but also how the associated services may be characterised in the context of everyday life. We undertook a formative study in four student flats over a twenty-day period, collecting data using interviews with eleven participants and over two hundred in-home sensors. Following an in-depth description of observations and findings from our study, we argue that our approach provides a more inclusive range of understandings of resources and everyday life than has been shown from energy-centric approaches.

Towards an holistic view of the energy and environmental impacts of domestic media and IT

To date, research in sustainable HCI has dealt with eco-feedback, usage and recycling of appliances within the home, and longevity of portable electronics such as mobile phones. However, there seems to be less awareness of the energy and greenhouse emissions impacts of domestic consumer electronics and information technology. Such awareness is needed to inform HCI sustainability researchers on how best to prioritise efforts around digital media and IT. Grounded in inventories, interview and plug energy data from 33 undergraduate student participants, our findings provide the context for assessing approaches to reducing the energy and carbon emissions of media and IT in the home. In the paper, we use the findings to discuss and inform more fruitful directions that sustainable HCI research might take, and we quantify how various strategies might have modified the energy and emissions impacts for our participants.

HCI and Environmental Public Policy: Opportunities for Engagement

This note discusses opportunities for the HCI community to engage with environmental public policy. It draws on insights and observations made during the primary authors recent work for a policy unit at Global Affairs Canada, which is a federal ministry of the Government of Canada. During that work, the primary author identified several domains of environmental public policy that are of direct relevance to the HCI community. This note contributes a preliminary discussion of how, why, with whom, and in what capacity HCI researchers and practitioners might engage with three types of environmental public policy: climate change, waste electrical and electronic equipment, and green ICT procurement policies. This builds on existing public policy and environmental knowledge within the HCI community and responds directly to calls from some members to engage with environmental public policy.

Doing good in HCI: can we broaden our agenda?

In this forum we highlight innovative thought, design, and research in the area of interaction design and sustainability, illustrating the diversity of approaches across HCI communities. --- Lisa Nathan, Editor

Exploring the hidden impacts of HomeSys: energy and emissions of home sensing and automation

Home sensing and automation systems are rarely discussed with reference to their direct energy demand, much less other environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions arising from their manufacture and transport. It is imperative that designers of such systems understand the impacts of the technologies they introduce, particularly where intended to save energy and promote sustainability. Using four case studies drawn from recent Ubicomp and HCI literature, this reflective paper quantifies the direct energy and estimates the embodied emissions arising from specific installations of home sensing. We contextualise this by comparing with typical impacts arising from existing ICT devices commonly found in the home, and highlight a number of ways in which designers can reduce the impacts of the systems they introduce into the home.

The Limits of HCD: Reimagining the Anthropocentricity of ISO 9241-210

Human-centred design (HCD) is just that: human-centred. As we approach the limits of Earths biophysical systems, it no longer feels appropriate to place humans at the centre of design decisions. Yet HCD and its ISO---ISO-9241-210:2010---continue to be powerful and popular tools within many computing and design departments, as well as in their affiliated industries. These design approaches are perpetuating the trend of incremental improvements to the living standards of the already privileged and digitally connected whilst ignoring the broader environmental and socio-political effects of digital technologies. In this paper, we attempt to reimagine HCD and its ISO by drawing on fields and concepts such as sustainable interaction design (SID), animal-computer interaction (ACI), and object oriented ontology (OOO). Through this, we contribute a preliminary set of proposals about what needs to change with HCD and its ISO. We close by discussing the ISO development process and suggesting routes for environmentally concerned researchers to influence the evolution of HCDs ISO.

The Limits of Evaluating Sustainability

Designing technology with sustainability in mind is becoming more and more important, especially considering future scenarios of limited resources where the worlds current lifestyle of wasteful consumption needs to change. But how can researchers believably argue that their solutions are indeed sustainable? How can consumers and technology users reliably acquire, understand, and apply information about environmental sustainability? Those questions are difficult to answer, especially in research domains where the impact on sustainability is not immediately measurable, such as sustainable HCI. The evaluation of sustainability is an ongoing problem that is often glossed over, but we believe the community needs to intensify its efforts to articulate its evaluation methods to other disciplines and external stakeholders. Even if those disciplines and stakeholders understand the importance of designing for sustainability, we need convincing arguments -- such as validation through thorough evaluations -- to showcase why a specific design solution works in the real world. In this paper, we analyze this problem by highlighting examples of sustainable HCI research in which evaluation of sustainability failed. We also look at previous research that sought to address this issue and discuss how their solutions can be generalized -- and when they might fail. While we do not have the final answer, our intention is to start a discussion as to why sustainable HCI research is oftentimes not doing enough to justify the validity of its solutions. We close our paper by suggesting a few examples of what we believe to be potential ways to address those issues and take action to improve the evaluation of sustainability.

HCI and UN's Sustainable Development Goals: Responsibilities, Barriers and Opportunities

Despite increasing interest, Sustainable HCI has been critiqued for doing too little, and perhaps also at times for doing the wrong things. Still, a field like Human-Computer Interaction should aim at being part of transforming our society into a more sustainable one. But how do we do that, and, what are we aiming for? With this workshop, we propose that HCI should start working with the new global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that were formally adopted by the UN in September 2015. How can Sustainable HCI be inspired by, and contribute to these goals? What should we in the field of HCI do more of, and what should we perhaps do less of? In what areas should we form partnerships in order to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and with whom should we partner?

Evaluation Beyond Usability: Validating Sustainable HCI Research

The evaluation of research artefacts is an important step to validate research contributions. Sub-disciplines of HCI often pursue primary goals other than usability, such as Sustainable HCI (SHCI), HCI for development, or health and wellbeing. For such disciplines, established evaluation methods are not always appropriate or sufficient, and new conventions for identifying, discussing, and justifying suitable evaluation methods need to be established. In this paper, we revisit the purpose and goals of evaluation in HCI and SHCI, and elicit five key elements that can provide guidance to identifying evaluation methods for SHCI research. Our essay is meant as a starting point for discussing current and improving future evaluation practice in SHCI; we also believe it holds value for other subdisciplines in HCI that encounter similar challenges while evaluating their research.