Ambient and Artistic Visualization of Residential Resource Use Johnny Rodgers* Lyn Bartram† Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts + Technology ABSTRACT Supporting sustainable resource use in the home requires a range of feedback techniques to enable informed decision-making. These techniques can include traditional screen-based interfaces, but these tools often require too much effort and attention from already-busy residents. An alternative approach is the provision of ambient and artistic visualizations integrated into the domestic environment. This method reduces the attention required of residents, increases aesthetic interest and coherence with the home, and enables situated and timely feedback on resource use. We present the theoretical basis of our research, discuss how we have applied it to the development of prototypes in two green home projects, and detail our ongoing efforts to evaluate techniques within this domain. KEYWORDS: Aesthetics, ambient visualization, residential resource use, sustainability. INDEX TERMS: H.5.0 [Information Systems: Information Interfaces and Presentation — General] 1 INTRODUCTION Figure 1. Clockwise from top-left: The Power-Aware Cord glows and pulses as electricity passes through it [4]. The Ténéré depicts a tree that dynamically Supporting sustainable resource use in the home requires a range changes to indicate power use [8]. 7000 Oaks and Counting conveys carbon of feedback techniques to enable informed decision-making. footprint as a kaleidoscopic artistic visualization, with trees mapped to low Sophisticated sensing and data collection mechanisms are making consumption and electronics to high [5]. Nuage Vert visualizes the energy a wealth of information about resource use available to residents. consumption of a region of Helsinki. Decreased demand leads to a larger Visualizing this data in ways that are meaningful and contextually ‘green’ cloud projected onto the emissions of the local power plant [3]. appropriate will help to bridge the gap between data and decisions about how to sustainably use resources in the home. informative art. However, as others have pointed out [1][12][13], and as we West House, our second and current project, is a small footprint have argued previously [2], we cannot just import established sustainable laneway home developed in partnership with the City visualization techniques to non-work environments. of Vancouver and displayed at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Contextualizing visualization for these environments means Winter Games. The second implementation of ALIS for West considering a range of user attention from ambient to attentive, House includes new prototypes in informative art and ambient appropriate placement of displays to support daily activities, and displays informed by our experiences with North House. balancing aesthetic appeal and usefulness [13]. After all, we cannot expect residents to refer to graphs on their computer every 3 RELATED WORK time they make a resource use decision. By integrating ambient and artistic feedback into the home, we can increase awareness of Significant research has been done to understand ambient and resource flows subtly and beautifully. artistic approaches to information visualization. Pousman and Stasko state that ambient information systems “display 2 CONTEXT information that is important but not critical; can move from the periphery to the focus of attention and back again; focus on the Our work in this area has grown out of two high-profile tangible (representations in the environment); provide subtle sustainable housing projects. The first, North House, is a net- changes to reflect updates in information (should not be zero home that placed 4th at the U.S. Department of Energy Solar distracting); and are aesthetically pleasing and environmentally Decathlon 2009, an international competition to design and build appropriate [11].” Ambient approaches make up one facet of the most energy efficient solar-powered home. We designed and Casual InfoVis: “the use of computer mediated tools to depict built the Aware Living Interface System (ALIS), an interactive personally meaningful information in visual ways that support visualization, control and social networking system to support everyday users in both everyday work and non-work situations informed energy and water use choices in North House. It [12].” Pousman et. al. draw attention to the potential Casual includes embedded displays with both passive and interactive InfoVis represents for users outside of the traditional InfoVis modes, web-accessible tools, mobile visualizations, and ambient paradigm, allowing practitioners to “develop for [the] idiosyncratic, private [...], and delicate nature of people’s lives * e-mail: jgr3@sfu.ca outside of focused episodes of work [12].” † e-mail: lyn@sfu.ca Examples include Miller and Stasko’s InfoCanvas, which artistically conveys peripheral personal information in order to 17 Figure 2. The Ambient Canvas is an ambient artistic visualization, pictured here embedded in the kitchen backsplash in West House. The canvas conveys relative levels of resource use in the home, as compared to past averages. As shown at right, one mode of display visualizes water use over time. Using the metaphor of a volume filling with water, the LED strings are lit and ‘fill’ the canvas over the course of the day as residents use water. reduce information overload [10], and Skog et. al.’s informative Ambient Canvas in West House was fully lit. In our model, this artworks [7][13]. Skog et. al. highlight the importance of would indicate a high degree of resource use — something to be balancing aesthetic appeal and practical usefulness when applying avoided! However, visitors remarked on the appearance of this these techniques. Along with Pousman et. al. [12], they note that mode, indicating that they enjoyed the look of it when fully lit. traditional methods of evaluating the effectiveness of a display — This suggests that our model may be backward: visually active typically considered in a work context — may not be the most states should perhaps be mapped to low resource use in order to important criteria to use when evaluating artistic displays. They encourage conservation. These and many other questions remain argue that aesthetic factors and ‘calmness’ may be just as relevant, to be explored. as these visualizations will be “lived with rather than used [13].” We are currently translating the Ambient Canvas to a software We also draw on Kosara’s distinction between artistic and emulator environment in order to study how different approaches pragmatic visualization. Where pragmatic visualization focuses on using this format are perceived by participants. In a lab setting, enabling the exploration and analysis of data sets, artistic we will not be able to assess the effectiveness of these approaches visualizations primarily aim to “communicate a concern, rather in reducing resource use. However, we will be able to assess the than to show data [7].” Artistic displays may not be immediately visualization’s perceptibility in different conditions, and collect recognizable as visualizations, and may require a period of data on participant’s impressions of the prototypes. learning to read accurately. Holmquist has proposed a framework In addition to experimental evaluation in the short term, our for evaluating the comprehension of ambient displays over time, research agenda includes plans for longitudinal studies. Now at progressing from awareness that information is being visualized, its permanent location, West House provides us with the to understanding what is being communicated, to finally opportunity to study the effect of these techniques on resource use comprehending how to make sense of that information [6]. in the home over time. 4 PROTOTYPES 6 CONCLUSION Existing instances of ambient and artistic feedback on resource Ambient and artistic visualizations represent a promising use have informed our approach [see Figure 1]. We have explored approach to the provision of feedback on residential resource use. a variety of concepts in this design space during the development The examples we have discussed address some of the drawbacks of ALIS, including ambient indicators embedded in smart of traditional visualization methods in this domain, enabling appliances, informative art applied as thermo-chromatic ink to cohesive integration with residential spaces and increased interior surfaces, digital photo frames displaying dynamic aesthetic appeal while supporting informed decision-making. Our landscapes, and light-based feedback on water use. ongoing research aims to identify and evaluate successful Our first major prototype is an embedded display combining techniques within this design space and situate them within a artistic and ambient approaches that we call the Ambient Canvas larger ecosystem approach to supporting sustainable living. [Figure 2]. 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