Comparing tangible and graphical interface of occupant voting system: Preliminary results of experimental field study in an office

Occupant voting systems (OVS) collect real-time votes on occupants’ perception on the indoor environment. The votes are applied to improve building control to achieve low energy consumption and improved occupant satisfaction. For achieving these, occupants need to use the OVS frequently. Few studies investigated whether the OVS’s interface influence voting frequency.

The study in this paper compared a tangible OVS interface (TUI), designed as a panel of buttons, to a graphical OVS interface (GUI), designed as a smartphone app. The study was conducted as a within-group in-field experiment in an office space with fourteen participants over four weeks. The results showed that when the participants could only vote with one of the interfaces, they casted equally the same amount of votes on the TUI and GUI.

When the participants could freely choose between the two interfaces, they voted more with the TUI because it was accessible and easier to use.