Untold stories from the field: a novel platform for collecting practical learnings on Human-Building Interactions

When implementing or studying building controls and interfaces in the field, researchers often witness first-hand human-building interactions from operators and occupants. While current comfort and occupant behavior models are able to explain some of these interactions, many fall under the fields of psychology, sociology and other humanities, which can be difficult for building technology researchers to interpret. Likewise, some causes of dissatisfaction, for example those linked to occupants’ acceptance of automated solutions or interface usability, may not be captured by existing evaluation frameworks for indoor environmental quality. These behaviors remain either unmentioned or are brought up solely as anecdotes in the majority of building science research and are rarely explored in depth, despite their potential to critically impact the success of building controls and interfaces in real-world conditions. To address these gaps, an international collaborative effort was conducted as part of the IEA EBC Annex 79, to gather stories from research projects around the world. This paper presents a pilot study, which offers a new framework for story collection using an online collaborative platform for planning and brainstorming. Through a series of prompts designed to encourage storytelling, researchers were invited to share anecdotes of unexpected operator or occupant behaviors, and to reflect upon their experiences and others’ stories. First, the anecdote collection framework is described, followed by an analysis of stories from the pilot study, which is based on an inductive qualitative approach. The disconnect between researchers’ expectations and the reality of occupant behaviors was seemingly driven by factors that can be broadly grouped into three primary categories: (1) faults in building systems, (2) complexity of IEQ perceptions due to interpersonal variation and interplay between different IEQ factors; and (3) non-physical reasons for occupant dissatisfaction (e.g., due to their perceptions of the building systems’ complexity and automation).