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To date, research in sustainable HCI has dealt with eco-feedback, usage and recycling of appliances within the home, and longevity of portable electronics such as mobile phones. However, there seems to be less awareness of the energy and greenhouse emissions impacts of domestic consumer electronics and information technology. Such awareness is needed to inform HCI sustainability researchers on how best to prioritise efforts around digital media and IT. Grounded in inventories, interview and plug energy data from 33 undergraduate student participants, our findings provide the context for assessing approaches to reducing the energy and carbon emissions of media and IT in the home. In the paper, we use the findings to discuss and inform more fruitful directions that sustainable HCI research might take, and we quantify how various strategies might have modified the energy and emissions impacts for our participants.

As the cost of display hardware falls so the number of public display networks being deployed is increasing rapidly. While these networks have traditionally taken the form of digital signage used for advertising and information there is increasing interest in the vision of "open display networks". A key component of any open display network is an effective channel for disseminating applications created by third-parties and recent research has proposed a display-oriented "application store" as one such channel [5]. In this paper we present a critical analysis of the requirements and design of display application stores -- providing insights designed to help the implementers of future application stores.

While traditional displays networks are typically closed systems, researchers are now beginning to explore the notion of open display networks in which content can be obtained from a wide range of sources. Open display networks have very different properties to closed networks as they need to deal with multiple management domains and conflicting content and scheduling requirements from different stakeholders. A key challenge is to provide an appropriate software infrastructure to support openness at all stages (e.g. content distribution, schedule creation, media playback). In this work we demonstrate a suite of software components that together provide a comprehensive eco-system for open pervasive display networks.

In this paper we investigate the willingness of public display owners to support cyber-foraging (appropriation) of displays by mobile users. Large digital displays are common in public and semi-public spaces and have the potential to provide a useful infrastructure for mobile users. Supporting display-foraging is not just a technical problem but will require support from viewers and display owners. We present the results of four studies exploring attitudes to display appropriation in order to understand the implications of supporting this type of cyber-foraging for future public displays.

There is increasing interest in using digital signage to deliver highly personalised content. However, display personalization presents a number of architectural design challenges in particular, how best to provide personalisation without unduly compromising viewers' privacy. While previous research has focused on understanding specific elements of the overall vision, our work presents details of the first significant attempt at a system that integrates future pervasive display networks and mobile devices to support display personalisation. We describe a series of usage models and design goals for display personalisation and then present Tacita, a system that supports these models and goals. Our architecture includes mobile, display and cloud-based elements and provides comprehensive personalisation features while preventing the creation of user profiles within the display infrastructure, thus helping to preserve users' privacy. An initial evaluation of our prototype implementation of the architecture is also included and demonstrates the viability of the Tacita approach.

Designing with the community brings about a number of benefits, including tacit and contextual knowledge about the problem domain; this is especially apparent in rural settings. However, designing for problems that have yet to embed themselves in the fabric of society (i.e. future problems) poses a number of challenges, as they typically present intangible scenarios and concepts that have yet to be experienced by the wider-community. Using the OnSupply project as a case study, we share our experience in working with the Tiree community to address a future problem through a technology-mediated enquiry. Furthermore, we present a novel process that uses creative workshops augmented with physical artefacts to inform and learn from the community about a problem space, and to seed the design of a system that addresses it.

We are exploring attitudes to renewable energy supply with the remote island community of Tiree. As part of this engagement, we are working with local children to introduce the topic of the energy generation potential of renewables (i.e. from wind and solar power). In this paper, we report on our early attempts to broker this engagement using a physical, co-constructed artefact (the PREP energy detector). Through making and co-construction, our goal was to encourage an ownership in the artefact, and thus foster enthusiasm for exploring energy potential. Observations from a recent workshop based on PREP suggest a high level of engagement and enthusiasm was engendered, which we believe was facilitated through co-construction of the artefact.

Tightly regulating indoor building temperatures using mechanical heating and cooling contributes significantly to worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. One promising approach for reducing the energy demand associated with indoor climate control is the adaptive model for thermal comfort. In this paper, we explore the challenges and opportunities for supporting the transition toward adaptive thermal comfort in conventionally heated buildings. We replaced the heating control system for eight university undergraduates living on campus for fifty days from January-March 2013. We report on the participants' experiences of living with and adapting to the change in conditions. We reflect on the lessons arising from our intervention for researchers and practitioners seeking to design for sustainability and thermal comfort.

With peak oil behind us, nuclear generation capacity dwindling, and increasingly daunting looking carbon emissions targets, we are moving to a world where we must consider transitioning to renewable energy sources. Renewables are time varying and their inherent unpredictability must challenge our everyday assumptions around energy availability—leading, we believe, to an emphasis on ‘supply’ rather than ‘demand’. Using a range of methods including action research, participatory design and technology mediated enquiry, we report on our work in partnership with the community of Tiree as an exemplar of this future. Tiree is the outermost of the Scottish Inner Hebrides— a remote island on the edge of the national electricity grid with a precarious grip on energy—here we uncover the role of renewables and the resilience of a community in moving away from traditional energy provision. We offer opportunities for designing ICT to support supply driven practices in this context, and a simple framework for exploiting under and over supply.

Tightly regulating indoor building temperatures using mechanical heating and cooling contributes significantly to worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. One promising approach for reducing the energy demand associated with indoor climate control is the adaptive model for thermal comfort. In this paper, we explore the challenges and opportunities for supporting the transition toward adaptive thermal comfort in conventionally heated buildings. We replaced the heating control system for eight university undergraduates living on campus for fifty days from January-March 2013. We report on the participants’ experiences of living with and adapting to the change in conditions. We reflect on the lessons arising from our intervention for researchers and practitioners seeking to design for sustainability and thermal comfort., © ACM, 2014. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in DIS ’14 Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2598529; Conference date: 21-06-2014 through 25-06-2014

With peak oil behind us, nuclear generation capacity dwindling, and increasingly daunting looking carbon emissions targets, we are moving to a world where we must consider transitioning to renewable energy sources. Renewables are time varying and their inherent unpredictability must challenge our everyday assumptions around energy availability—leading, we believe, to an emphasis on ‘supply’ rather than ‘demand’. Using a range of methods including action research, participatory design and technology mediated enquiry, we report on our work in partnership with the community of Tiree as an exemplar of this future. Tiree is the outermost of the Scottish Inner Hebrides— a remote island on the edge of the national electricity grid with a precarious grip on energy—here we uncover the role of renewables and the resilience of a community in moving away from traditional energy provision. We offer opportunities for designing ICT to support supply driven practices in this context, and a simple framework for exploiting under and over supply.

In four university student kitchens over twenty-one days, we captured participants’ food preparation activity, quantified the greenhouse gas emissions and direct energy connected to the food and cooking, and talked to participants about their food practices. Grounded in this uniquely detailed micro-account, our findings inform sustainable design for cooking and eating at home and quantify the potential impacts. We outline the relation of the impacts to our participants’ approaches to everyday food preparation, the organisation of their time, and the role of social meals. Our technique allows evaluation of opportunities for sustainable intervention design: at the appliance, in the digitally-mediated organisation of meals and inventory management, and more broadly in reflecting upon and reshaping diet., © ACM, 2013. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in CHI ’13 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2481339

This paper describes Yarely, a software player designed to support the next generation of pervasive display networks. We identify five design goals for future digital signage players: the ability to provide basic signage functionality (media scheduling and playback) and support for openness, extensibility, resilience and appropriation. The paper describes the design and implementation of Yarely in light of these design goals. We present an evaluation of the system in the form of deployment and usage data alongside a reflection on the degree to which Yarely successfully addresses the needs of future pervasive display systems.

In four university student kitchens over twenty-one days, we captured participants' food preparation activity, quantified the greenhouse gas emissions and direct energy connected to the food and cooking, and talked to participants about their food practices. Grounded in this uniquely detailed micro-account, our findings inform sustainable design for cooking and eating at home and quantify the potential impacts. We outline the relation of the impacts to our participants' approaches to everyday food preparation, the organisation of their time, and the role of social meals. Our technique allows evaluation of opportunities for sustainable intervention design: at the appliance, in the digitally-mediated organisation of meals and inventory management, and more broadly in reflecting upon and reshaping diet.

In many parts of the world, mechanical heating and cooling is used to regulate indoor climates, with the aim of maintaining a uniform temperature. Achieving this is energy-intensive, since large indoor spaces must be constantly heated or cooled, and the difference to the outdoor temperature is large. This paper starts from the premise that comfort is not delivered to us by the indoor environment, but is instead something that is pursued as a normal part of daily life, through a variety of means. Based on a detailed study of four university students over several months, we explore how Ubicomp technologies can help create a more sustainable reality where people are more active in pursuing and maintaining their thermal comfort, and environments are less tightly controlled and less energy-intensive, and we outline areas for future research in this domain.

In many parts of the world, mechanical heating and cooling is used to regulate indoor climates, with the aim of maintaining a uniform temperature. Achieving this is energy-intensive, since large indoor spaces must be constantly heated or cooled, and the difference to the outdoor temperature is large. This paper starts from the premise that comfort is not delivered to us by the indoor environment, but is instead something that is pursued as a normal part of daily life, through a variety of means. Based on a detailed study of four university students over several months, we explore how Ubicomp technologies can help create a more sustainable reality where people are more active in pursuing and maintaining their thermal comfort, and environments are less tightly controlled and less energy-intensive, and we outline areas for future research in this domain., © ACM, 2013. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in UbiComp ’13 Proceedings of the 2013 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2493432.2493451

In four university student kitchens over twenty-one days, we captured participants' food preparation activity, quantified the greenhouse gas emissions and direct energy connected to the food and cooking, and talked to participants about their food practices. Grounded in this uniquely detailed micro-account, our findings inform sustainable design for cooking and eating at home and quantify the potential impacts. We outline the relation of the impacts to our participants' approaches to everyday food preparation, the organisation of their time, and the role of social meals. Our technique allows evaluation of opportunities for sustainable intervention design: at the appliance, in the digitally-mediated organisation of meals and inventory management, and more broadly in reflecting upon and reshaping diet.

This retrospective on 20 years of ubiquitous computing research identifies opportunities for leveraging utility computing and the Internet of Things to grow the ubicomp infrastructure, and discusses remaining challenges to taking ubicomp systems to where they indeed become ubiquitous.

Trends such as the increasing adoption of smartphones, the development of the service-oriented internet, and diffusion of sensing technologies into cities have the potential to combine in order to form a ubiquitous computing infra- structure. At the same time, as the computer diffuses into the physical world, it loses its location-neutrality, exposing the urgent need for a debate of design choices in ubiquitous computing. In this paper, we discuss the process of urban development as a source of inspiration for such design choices. Looking from the ground up, of particular interest is the opportunity to localize and democratize an emerging ubiquitous computing infrastructure. The design choices we negotiate today will determine the society in which we will live in the future.

While many global internet services today could be perceived as being largely managed top-down without much appreciation of local control, recent examples such as location-based data stores implemented in cities around the world suggest opportunities for novel forms of management of data with relevance to a local context. We argue that such localization of ubiquitous system management provides an opportunity in supporting local off-line interaction and ‘community building’ and that urban development, which requires interaction between members of different communities, presents an interesting case to support this claim.

A reflection on the authors' experiences with public display research - systems built and lessons learned - explores content creation and control, programmable infrastructures, and applications, to offer unique insights for those considering research or practical deployments using this technology.

Previous work in eco-feedback has focused either on new sensing technologies, or on people’s responses to specific feedback devices and other interventions placed in their homes. Complementary to such work, we take a two-pronged approach in accounting for both the amount of resources that specific appliances draw upon, and how the services provided by such appliances tie into everyday life. We performed a study in four student flats over a twenty-day period, collecting data using interviews with eleven participants and over two hundred in-home sensors. Our goal is to understand the challenges in accounting for re- sources, services and practices at home, and what these challenges mean for future sustainability and eco-feedback research.

In this paper we reflect on our long-term experiences of developing, deploying and supporting an experimental digital signage system. Existing public display systems almost always feature a single point of control that is responsible for scheduling content for presentation on the network and provide sophisticated mechanisms for controlling play-out timing and relative ordering. Our experiences suggest that such complex feature-sets are unnecessary in many cases and, indeed, may be counter productive in signage systems. We describe an alternative, simple, set of tools for encouraging widespread use of signage systems based on a shared system of `content channels' from content providers and display owners. Our system has been in continuous use for approximately 3 years and we reflect and draw lessons from how our user community has adopted and used the public display network. We believe that these reflections will be of benefit to future developers of ubiquitous display networks.

The problem of reducing domestic energy consumption is a hot topic in the pervasive computing and CHI communities, though it is also one with a long and varied history. In this survey we give a brief overview of the history and current state of four approaches to this problem, from feedback-oriented and technology-centric systems found in pervasive computing, to social factors research and economics-based studies. We aim to provide an introductory set of references that allows readers to explore the rich background of this topic more deeply and broadly, and complement more focused reviews already published.

As the Web of Things (WoT) broadens real world interaction via the internet, there is an increasing need for a user centric model for managing and interacting with real world objects. We believe that online social networks can provide that capability and can enhance existing and future WoT platforms leading to a Social WoT. As both social overlays and user interface containers, online social networks (OSNs) will play a significant role in the evolution of the web of things. As user interface containers and social overlays, they can be used by end users and applications as an on-line entry point for interacting with things, both receiving updates from sensors and controlling things. Conversely, access to user identity and profile information, content and social graphs can be useful in physical social settings like cafés. In this paper we describe some of the key features of social networks used by existing social WoT systems. We follow this with a discussion of open research questions related to integration of OSNs and how OSNs may evolve to be more suitable for integration with places and things. Several ongoing projects in our lab leverage OSNs to connect places and things to online communities.

Congestion in urban areas causes financial loss to business and increased use of energy compared with free-flowing traffic. Providing citizens with accurate information on traffic conditions can encourage journeys at times of low congestion and uptake of public transport. Installing the measurement infrastructure in a city to provide this information is expensive and potentially invades privacy. Increasingly, public transport vehicles are equipped with sensors to provide real-time arrival time estimates, but these data are sparse. Our work shows how these data can be used to estimate journey times experienced by road users generally. In this paper we describe (i) what a typical data set from a fleet of over 100 buses looks like; (ii) describe an algorithm to extract bus journeys and estimate their duration along a single route; (iii) show how to visualise journey times and the influence of contextual factors; (iv) validate our approach for recovering speed information from the sparse movement data.

In this paper we explore the notion of application stores (App. Stores) in the context of public display networks. Drawing on our experiences in the development and deployment of an open content distribution system for display networks, we consider some key challenges in providing an App. Store for open public display networks.

Providing sustainable energy is one of the fundamental challenges for mankind. With energy usage being a part of everyday activities and with the increasingly diversity of energy creation this is an inherently multi-disciplinary problem. Transportation and travel, heating and cooling, manu-facturing and production are major areas in which energy is used and all these domains become more and more linked to ubiquitous computing. With an increase in decentralized energy provision, ranging from energy harvesting in devices to personal green power plants, a great potential for creating sustainable energy arises, however at the cost of a higher complexity of the distribution network and storage mechanisms. Overall we believe that research in ubiquitous computing can provide important contributions for a world with sustainable energy. In this workshop we hope to get people from different disciplines together to share their visions and insights on how to conserve, efficiently produce, use, and distribute energy.

One of the challenges of creating applications from confederations of Internet-enabled things is the complexity of having to deal with spontaneously interacting and partially available heterogeneous devices. In this paper we describe the features of the MAGIC Broker 2 (MB2) a platform designed to offer a simple and consistent programming interface for collections of things. We report on the key abstractions offered by the platform and report on its use for developing two IoT applications involving spontaneous device interaction: 1) mobile phones and public displays, and 2) a web-based sensor actuator network portal called Sense Tecnic (STS). We discuss how the MB2 abstractions and implementation have evolved over time to the current design. Finally we present a preliminary performance evaluation and report qualitatively on the developers' experience of using our platform.

One of the key challenges faced when developing context-aware pervasive systems is to capture the set of inputs that we want a system to adapt to. Arbitrarily specifying ranges of sensor values to respond to will lead to incompleteness of the specification, and may also result in conflicts, when multiple incompatible adaptations may be triggered by a single user action. We posit that the ideal approach combines the use of past traces of real, annotated context data with the ability for a system designer or user to go in and interactively modify the specification of the set of inputs a particular adaptation should be responsive to. We introduce Situvis, an interactive visualisation tool we have developed which assists users and developers of context-aware pervasive systems by visually representing the conditions that need to be present for a situation to be triggered in terms of the real-world context that is being recorded, and allows the user to visually inspect these properties, evaluate their correctness, and change them as required. This tool provides the means to understand the scope of any adaptation defined in the system, and intuitively resolve conflicts inherent in the specification.

"…a must-read text that provides a historical lens to see how ubicomp has matured into a multidisciplinary endeavor. It will be an essential reference to researchers and those who want to learn more about this evolving field." -From the Foreword, Professor Gregory D. Abowd, Georgia Institute of Technology

An increasing trend in mobile and pervasive computing is the augmentation of everyday public spaces with local computation -- leading to so called smart environments. However, there are no well accepted techniques for supporting spontaneous interaction between mobile users and these smart environments, though a wide range of techniques have been explored ranging from gesture recognition to downloading applications to a user's phone. In this paper we explore an approach to supporting such interaction based on the use of Bluetooth Device (user-friendly) Names as a control channel between users' mobile phones and computational resources in their local environment. Such an approach has many advantages over existing techniques though it is not without limitations. Our work focuses specifically on the use of Device Names to control and customize applications on large public displays in a campus environment. This paper describes our basic approach, a number of applications that we have constructed using this technique and the results of our evaluation work which has included a range of user studies and field trials. The paper concludes with an assessment of the viability of using our approach for interaction scenarios involving mobile users and computationally rich environments.

Interacting with mobile applications and services remains difficult for users because of the impact of mobility on both device capabilities and the cognitive resources of users. In this paper we explore the idea that interaction with mobile services can be made faster and more convenient if users are allowed to speculatively prepare in advance the services they wish to use and the data they will need. Essentially we propose to enable users to offset difficult interactions while mobile with a larger number of interactions conducted in the desktop environment. To illustrate the concept of offsetting we have developed a prototype we call the 'context clipboard'. Early feedback suggests that a majority (70%) of the participants are in favour of the concept and that they (80%) may be prepared to use explicit preparation behaviour to simplify future interactions. We close with our reflections on key implications for systems design and challenges for taking this work forward.