Tangible lighting controls—Reporting end-users' interactions with lighting control interfaces

Abstract

This paper aims to describe a framework that formally evaluates end-user interactions with lighting control interfaces, the antecedent factors that help form it, and its applications. The framework uses the concept of tangible interaction to distinguish between notions of usability and end-user experience, and argues that both have an impact on the overall effectiveness of lighting control interfaces. Usability is concerned with easier understanding of control functions. End-user experience is concerned with explicating the quality of end-users' experience such as fun and pleasure of use. Survey research and experimental mock-ups were used to design experiments that enabled end-users to evaluate their own interactions with conventional lighting control interfaces. End-user responses obtained from these experiments challenge manufacturers' claims about the effectiveness of conventional lighting control interfaces, and reveal a different way of thinking about future interface designs. Such a change in thinking could lead to lighting control interfaces that are easier to understand and more pleasurable to use. A set of measures for future empirical testing is provided that is general enough to allow researchers to create measures for other aspects related to end-user interactions beyond those targeted in this paper.