Development of user-centered lighting control interface for residential space

Abstract

With the advent of lighting technology, LEDs are being replaced as main sources of light in residential space, offering users wide possibilities of lighting environments in everyday life. This study aims to develop PicLight, a user-centered lighting control interface for the home environment. PicLight takes a photo and simulates it in various lighting scenarios. It then allows users to select the most optimal lighting conditions that match an affective state and activity type that the users desire. To develop PicLight, this study was divided into 3 main parts. In Part I, a workshop with designers was conducted to explore ideas for a novel and intuitive concept for a lighting control interface. Through the workshop, it was shown that the behavior of photo editing was analogous to controlling light. Based on this analogy, the UI concept of PicLight, which allows users to take photos and simulate a preview of the optimal lighting environments through the use of lighting presets, was developed. In order to provide PicLight users a set of lighting presets most optimal in residential space, Part II aimed to find a relationship between the household activities, user emotions and lighting conditions. Through empirical evaluation of lighting conditions, 20 lighting scenarios, each scenario describing 1) a household activity, 2) an emotion users want to feel most while performing that activity, and 3) a lighting condition most optimal for eliciting the desired emotion for the intended activity, were generated. In Part III, the 20 lighting scenarios derived from Part II were implemented as presets for PicLight, and a user test was conducted to verify the lighting scenarios. As a final result, 8 lighting scenarios, which can be used a lighting presets to increase intuitiveness of lighting control interfaces for residential homes were derived. User feedback of the PicLight interface indicated that the process of previewing lighting presets made controlling the lights not only intuitive, but more fun and exciting. As such, this study provides evidence that photo editing behaviors and the use of presets based on the relationship between activity, emotion and lighting are appropriate features for designing future lighting control interfaces. It also provides a guideline for setting user-centered lighting presets for ambient lighting in residential homes.