Evaluating ActuAir: Building Occupants' Experiences of a Shape-Changing Air Quality Display

With workplace buildings becoming increasingly sensor-rich environments and amidst climate change and global pandemic pressures, there is novel opportunity for utilizing climatic data within buildings for awareness and wellbeing purposes. Interaction design research, including on large, shared-displays, rarely addresses building occupants’ experiences of air quality (AQ); and to-date there are no studies evaluating such interventions in the context of communicating climatic data in the workplace. Responding to these research gaps, three prototype-led studies were conducted with 21 occupants of a smart office building over June-August 2022, evaluating occupants’ experiences of a large shape- and color-changing display responding to AQ data. A thematic analysis resulted in design implications for improving shape- and color-changing displays for communicating AQ data; linking biomimicry to data interpretation. Contributing to Human-Building Interaction (HBI) research in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field, we provide design directions for future shape-changing and responsive architectures for climate awareness in smart buildings.