Notification of two new publications has recently come down the pipeline for the research group. The first is a workshop paper that we will present at UbiComp 2010 in the Ubiquitous Computing for Sustainable Energy workshop. The second is a poster on our framework for the design of residential resource use feedback that has been accepted to InfoVis 2010. We look forward to discussing the work with our colleagues in Copenhagen and Salt Lake City!

Bartram, L., & Woodbury, R. (2010). Supporting sustainable living: aware homes and smart occupants. Workshop presented at the Proceedings of UbiComp 2010, Copenhagen,  Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing for Sustainable Energy. 

Awareness of resource consumption in the home is a key part of reducing our ecological footprint, yet lack of appropriate understanding and motivation often deters residents from behaviour change. We report on the design and implementation an in-home system that supports residents in awareness of resource use, facilitates efficient control of house systems, and encourages conservation in daily activities. Initial responses from deployments in two high-profile sustainable homes indicate the potential this holistic approach has in engaging residents in sustainable living. We present the design rationale for our approach, and discuss the challenges and opportunities we have addressed.

Rodgers, J., & Bartram, L. (2010). Visualizing Residential Resource Use: A Framework for Design. Poster presented at the Proceedings of InfoVis, Salt Lake City, USA. 

Effectively visualizing residential resource consumption is a key challenge of environmental conservation efforts. However, existing approaches have relied on a variety of assumptions about effective techniques without a unifying theoretical foundation, a set of criteria for categorizing different approaches, or a means of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each. This is a design space in need of some structure. To this end, we present our ongoing work to construct a comprehensive framework for the design and analysis of information visualization techniques for the provision of feedback on residential resource use. This is intended to serve both the investigation of existing instances and the design of future systems. It is our hope that continued refinement of this framework will deepen our understanding of effective approaches, and establish a common set of terms to characterize the field.