Design considerations for interactive office lighting interface characteristics, shared and hybrid control

The inclusion of IoT in office lighting allows people to have personal lighting control at their workplace. To design lighting control interfaces that fit people’s everyday living, we need a better understanding of how people experience lighting interaction in the real world. Still, lighting control is often explored in controlled settings. This work presents a qualitative field study concerning the user experience of two control interfaces for a state-of-the-art lighting system of 400+ luminaires in a real-life office. In ten weeks, 43 people interacted 3937 times. The findings illustrate the effects of using a smartphone for lighting control, how people experience lighting control in shared situations, and issues with automatic system behavior. We define design considerations for interface characteristics, shared control, and hybrid control. The work contributes to making the potential benefits of interactive office lighting a reality.