A review and application of usability guidelines relating to domestic heating controls

Abstract

Domestic buildings are currently responsible for nearly one-third of UK CO2 emissions and the majority of these emissions are due to the large heat energy consumption of UK homes. Building occupants heavily influence this consumption by interacting with domestic heating controls. The poor usability of these controls has been widely documented and several sets of guidance produced. However, little has been done to validate this guidance or document its implementation. This article applies three sets of usability guidelines to the design of a heating control, aiming to produce a simple, usable and accessible interface. The interface developed was subsequently tested with 31 users (23–78 years old). The testing identified whether the design changes motivated by the guidance made had improved usability. The usability of the prototype system can be tentatively verified due to the high overall success rate, low average task completion time and low error rates observed. The subjective satisfaction ratings were also high and the help features were used infrequently, implying that the system was easy to use. Despite considerable design effort to improve usability further work is still required to make the heating controls more accessible to older users. If the buildings are to be both intelligent and sustainable then the control systems within domestic buildings need to be usable by the widest possible range of users.