Designing sensitive environments…in the home.

Technology is changing our relationship with our various environments — but is it changing it for the better?

Technology has changed everything; from the way we communicate, to how we learn, and even how we travel. Over recent years, technological advances have increasingly begun to disrupt the traditional roles of our physical environments, and the ways in which we interact with them. Technology has made it possible for us to do almost anything from pretty much anywhere, thus liberating us from location-based activities. The boundaries of our various spaces are becoming increasingly blurred as a result, and our home, work and social environments are no longer distinct. More and more people are working outside of traditional office spaces, socialising remotely from within the home, and controlling domestic activities from outside of the household.

By creating new ways of interacting with our spaces and the everyday objects within them, the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) has afforded us much greater control over how we live our lives. The IoT and connected devices, has, for example, resulted in much more domestic elasticity, whereby various aspects of household management such as energy monitoring, security and comfort settings can be controlled using mobile apps from outside the walls of the home. The development of ‘smart’ doorbells has made it unnecessary for us to be present in the home to receive guests, instead allowing remote control access via a mobile phone. Developments in technology are having similarly significant impacts on workplaces and social practices, and recently ‘the internet of everything’ became coined as a term to describe not only the connection of these spaces, referred to as ‘smart’ spaces, but the connection too of entire cities, or smart cities.

But what do smart spaces mean for real life? How are these spaces being designed? More to the point, who are these smart spaces being designed for? The literature suggests a largely piecemeal and technology-led approach to design, where the development of gadgets and connected devices comes first, and consideration for the space itself, and the people who inhabit those spaces, comes after. Read about smart homes or smart workplaces, and you’ll quickly learn about the efficiencies that occupying a smart space will afford you — convenience, economic prosperity and for the environmentally minded, sustainability. So far, so functional. But what about the various and changing emotional needs of different groups of people inhabiting these spaces? If emotional needs within a certain environment are overlooked during the design process, what impact will this have on people’s connection with the spaces and the people they share them with? And how will this change as they start to fill these spaces with various connected devices?

Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Rasmussen expand on these dangers, highlighting that many smart home appliance manufacturers would have you believe that the home is simply about consuming content and controlling the house, however this is at odds with what the idea of ‘home’ actually means to people. If we’re not careful, automation and connected devices could remove the things we enjoy about the spaces we occupy, as well as the softer personal developmental benefits that come as a result. For example, kitchens of the future are often presented as using technology to free us from preparing food, which ignores not only the pleasure of cooking, but also the important benefits of knowledge building, skill gaining, multi-tasking and consideration for and bonding with loved ones.

Rather than take a top-down technology-led approach to the design of these spaces, we must instead look first at gaining a deep understanding of the human experience, by exploring the beliefs, values and emotions of people as they inhabit the home, workplace and social spaces. By exploring how advances in technology are impacting how we interact with these key spaces, on an emotional as well as a practical level, we can consider what it requires to design ‘sensitive’ environments that are responsive to the changing emotional needs of the people inhabiting these shared spaces.

Sensitive Spaces — an open enquiry into the impact of technology on peoples’ experiences of home, workplace and social spaces.

At Modern Human, we have been conducting numerous investigations to explore the dissolving boundaries of the home, work, and social spaces, looking specifically at people’s behaviours in each of these spaces, and the needs and motivations that drive them.

In the first of these investigations we set out to explore the home-worlds of couples, families and housemates, to understand how remote environmental control impacts their relationship with the home and the people they share it with.

How does remote environmental control impact our idea of what home is?

As a design researcher my practice is rooted in ethnography. Watching what people do, how they interact with their environment and the products and services they use always reveals more of what they think and feel than merely asking them. As such, in-home observations and shadowing have complemented the interviews that we ran with our research participants. To build up an understanding of people’s private lives (when they weren’t being followed around by an inquisitive researcher) and day-to-day experiences, we also ran a diary study to explore daily rituals and modal preferences for the home environment, at different times of the day across the week.

The group included young couples and couples whose adult children had left the home, new mums, families with young children and teenagers, and people with mobility issues. Within the group, there was a mix of home ownership and cohabiting situations, single smart home devices and a number of devices within the home.

Home; a safe place to experiment with and express one’s identity.

Across the mix of participants, people’s concept of home was very similar. It is a safe place in which they can be themselves, without judgement, apology or compromise. A harmonious place where they can experiment with and express their identities, demonstrate care to friends and family and make guests feel as comfortable as if they were in their own home. Relaxation and respite was an important characteristic of home to all, but prioritised by those who experienced stress of any notable form in their lives. Parents tended to think about home in terms of their children’s needs, but their idea of home itself did not differ to that of couples or adult house sharers.

Smart home motivations and gadget gateways.

There were three main motivations that led to acquiring smart home technology — identity making, playful experimenting, or economising.

For the Identity Makers of the group, buying smart tech was not about fulfilling a need in the household, but was instead about aligning oneself with being ‘modern’, demonstratively embracing ‘the new’, connecting oneself to youth culture, or establishing themselves as ‘taste makers’. Smart technology seemed to be the best way to future-proof themselves against the onslaught of impending technological advancements, subscribing to a tech-based identity and an initial smart device purchase quickly led to an amassing of smart technology in the home.

“The robots are coming! You may as well join them. Look at me, I’m not against them — why stand in the way of progress!?” — Chris*, family man with adult children no longer living at home.

For the Identity Makers, the smart tech gadget gateway is most likely to be the novel, performative or entertainment gadgetry; the Google Home or Amazon Echo, or the Hue lighting.

Playful Experimenters are tech savvy and inquisitive. They enjoy exploring the capability of the technology, and discovering where the boundaries lie for themselves. Playful Experimenters are more discerning of their tech choices, tend to have specific functional requirements, and are less accepting of the restrictions that may come with certain platforms or systems. They are quick to look for ‘backdoor Bluetooth’ solutions, enabling them to integrate products as they wish. Whilst their technological expectations and standards are high they also find fun in technology and can enjoy it for technology’s sake, which can trump it’s fit-for-purpose credentials.

For the Playful Experimenter, the gadget gateway is the latest or most versatile gadgetry — smart speakers or switches. Although they probably already have a Sonos, smart TV and Chromecast lurking in their home, along with an abundance of Bluetooth speakers, they just no longer consider these to be smart home devices.

“Google Home hasn’t enhanced my life, it’s a fun thing for a curious person — it’s a toy.” — Roxanne,*, living with her boyfriend.

“I bought Google Home but I quickly sold it to a friend. I couldn’t see a reason for it, the commands didn’t work well — it was more effort than there was gain. Perhaps in the future when the technology has caught up with the vision.” — Dave*, adult house sharer.

Economisers are practically minded. They start off their smart home device journey with purpose — to reduce cost and waste — and enjoy the control aspect of the technology. In fact, whilst their intentions were to reduce waste, many suspect that they now turn the hot water and heating on more than off. Whilst control itself was not an initial motivation for Economisers to buy, ‘control-freaking’ — the thrill of choosing to effect a change or simply monitor the home environment — becomes a powerful, habitual driver for their ongoing use of smart tech. This behaviour is apparent across all motivational groups, but is seen predominantly in Economisers and Identity Makers.

For Economisers, the gadget gateway is a smart meter, thermostat or a smart switch. Smart meters and thermostats are independently researched and purchased, or were initially suggested by energy providers.

“A lot of it is to do with my prejudice against the energy companies. It’s a nifty little gadget. I tried to do it one way and then another way, to work out if it’s most economical to be really hot for spurts, or constantly cool — I’ve been asking the engineers, but they don’t know. I do boosts to dry the laundry.. it’s a head and heart story, I want to be green and I don’t like being wasteful, but the predominant thing — the head thing, is cost.” — Alexander*, living with his girlfriend.

Interestingly, unlike other household purchases, smart technology tended to be a solo decision driven by one of the three key motivations. Other key decision makers in the household were involved only at the very end of the decision making, for acquiescence rather than deliberation purposes. There were no ‘should we, shouldn’t we’ conversations, or participation in brand or product comparisons for a household’s first smart tech gadget. Only with the suggestion of a second product would partners invite greater consideration for the purchase. Rather than simply agreeing however, partners have their own agendas for acquiescing to the introduction of smart tech into their home. These include the opportunity to create ‘Us’ behaviours, and ‘partner desire-supporting’.

The course of smart home tech does not always run smoothly. Mounting frustration with smart home tech incapability or inequalities within the household become harder to reconcile. This is especially true in front of guests, where people feel visible and vulnerable as a couple, with their relationship and household on display for judgement. Without a private/public mode to alter its functionality in the presence of others, smart home tech can find itself regarded as an ‘irritant’ and relegated to the private spaces of the home to avoid creating discomfort.

To prevent the creation of insensitive technology, we need to better understand the delicate emotional balance and needs of a household — something I will be examining further in future articles.

Watch out for more of my articles in our sensitive environmental design series, which will focus on ‘Designing sensitive environments…in the home, Relationship dynamics in the smart home, Monitoring, privacy & surveillance within the smart home, Care & support within the smart home — augmenting human abilities, Quality of space, and Growing up with Smart Technology’

Siobhan is a design researcher specialising in qualitative research. For the last 10 years she’s been going ‘undercover’ to explore how people interact with the products and services they use, in order to inform design decisions. Her work has taken her to East Africa to understand and design for the healthcare and lifestyle challenges faced by patients suffering with hypertension, to a range of different countries in Asia to explore business culture in all its nuances, and to hangout on rooftops and building sites of tradespeople, to understand the complexities and challenges of their working lives.

Siobhan is responsible for designing the sensitive spaces project for Modern Human. This has been a ‘lay of the land’ piece of research, identifying a number of areas of interest for further exploration. If you would like to explore any of the research topics or findings raised within the Sensitive Spaces project, please get in touch Siobhan@modernhuman.co

*All names have been changed to protect participants’ identities.

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