Internet of Everything: World of IoE Design (Part 2)

How can Internet of Everything principles and interconnected design enable better user experiences across the scales at which RTKL and Arcadis design? Earlier this summer, Michael Colburn and I introduced our research into the Internet of Everything and Interconnected Design. For those who took time to read our introductory blog, hopefully you came away with a sense of awe and wonder (or at least moderate intrigue) as to the potential Internet of Everything principles can bring to design at RTKL. For those just picking up here, hopefully this question will serve as a summary of our research goals. At a high level, the Internet of Everything (IoE) is the idea of connecting people, places, and things present in our daily lives to provide better experiences. Our research seeks to examine IoE principles at the four major scales RTKL and Arcadis design for: Individual, Space, Facility and Community.

So far, we’ve identified two very broad subjects, IoE and user experience, and now we’re striving to draw a connection between them. In our first blog post we outlined our first steps towards drawing these connections. Our research roadmap describes the need for open discussions with subject matter experts, both internal and external, and to seek input on how user experience can be enhanced through varying technologies. We’re looking for not just the promises, but the potential risks and pitfalls as well. To begin this phase we have developed a list of internal RTKL designers from a variety of disciplines; Communications, Workplace, Commercial, PDD, Healthcare, PUD, TDS, etc. We found that the designers we’ve contacted are eager to help, even if they had no real idea what type of information we were looking for. In fact, Mike and I went into these initial focus group discussions with the same mindset; whatever happens, happens. What’s been happening, however has been some very insightful conversations weaving in and out of possible tie-ins with IoE.

Take for example our discussions around Performance Driven Design and IoE. This conversation led to an initially counterintuitive question: can technology make us less capable of controlling our environments? Examine smart thermostats in the home or building automation systems in large facilities. While they make automating temperature a snap, are we now so reliant on these tools that we’ve forgotten the basics of using natural methods to control temperature in our spaces? Does automation introduce the risk that we as individuals forget common sense techniques that generations of humans have used for millennia? If this is a real issue, do we respond by abandoning automation and advanced controls, or re-evaluate how we design and implement controls? These are big questions we’ll come back to in this blog and try to address further in our final research.

We also had great discussions with Workplace designers around technology and user experience at the space scale. The feedback we received wasn’t all positive. In fact, there was frustration that certain technologies can make performing even menial tasks, say running a PowerPoint presentation, a frustrating act. To Mike and I, this represents opportunity to see if interconnecting typically disparate systems such as room reservation, audiovisual, IT, lighting, and occupancy sensors, can lead to more productive meetings, and thus a better user experience. The conversations have been insightful and have started giving us a glimpse into what makes other designers in the firm tick, and how they define a successful user experience.

In addition to detailed questions about specific user experiences, we’ve tried to step back and ask more basic question about the elements of successful user experience design. Our Kagan research has led us to the analogy of a recipe for good user experience. Each user experience has a unique set of ingredients, and each time they are present they are mixed together in different ways. Each user experience is designed to accentuate different values, from code mandated requirements to financial incentives, to environmental and social motivations. The complete recipe for a specific user experience records the systems, materials, and services that impact the experience (the ingredients), the ways in which they are to interact (the directions), and the resulting impact to the clients metrics (nutrition facts). Throughout our research we’ll use this analogy to help document good user experience design and record ways IoE principles could be used to augment the user experience.

Revisiting the earlier topic of automated thermostats, I’d like to share a personal case study that I unknowingly performed. In April, after the hype surrounding Google’s $3 billion acquisition of Nest, I dropped a cringe-worthy $249 on the learning thermostat. During the sales pitch to my wife I explained the potential cost savings and how the device should essentially “pay for itself in the long term”. I was wrong.

This summer, I set a new record for highest energy bill since we moved into our home in 2012. Wait, I thought this was a smart thermostat? Doesn’t smart automatically equate to cost savings? The Nest’s internal algorithms calculated a schedule it perceived I wanted, thus running up my energy bill like a 13 year old with a new cell phone. I wanted to blame the Nest, but I left my homes HVAC system on autopilot with a brand new piece of smart hardware. This isn’t a blanket indictment of automated control systems; rather, a lesson learned from the user experience end. The lesson? We inherently understand logic, If-This-Then-That, style control. Learning algorithms, on the other hand, are inherently more complicated to implement and often their behavior is obscured from the user. A piece of learning hardware may be all too willing to give us what we want, so it’s important to know how the algorithms work so we can teach these types of devices what our values are.

At this point it seems we’ve scratched the surface of our research, but our goals and next steps are coming more into focus with each conversation we have. In September, Mike and I will be traveling to Miami for the RTKL annual Design Conference. This will be a great venue for us to open a dialogue with some of the firm’s best and brightest designers and to focus on the “connecting people” side of IoE design. At the same time, keeping our ears and eyes open to the way the city of Miami works and looking for opportunities to explore user experience and interconnectivity in our travels. While we’ll continue to host these internal design discussions, we also want to get input on user experience from key industry manufacturers such as IBM, Cisco, and Honeywell. Without these manufacturers, many of the technologies behind our research would not exist.

Speaking of tech giants like Cisco and IBM, their case studies will provide valuable data around the facility and community scales of our research. Companies like Cisco are providing complex communications infrastructure throughout facilities and across enterprises, while IBM is working with cities like Honolulu to make traffic and crime data more transparent, giving residents access to real-time data driven apps. These scales are also where our discussions would branch out to internal groups such as PUD and to specific disciplines in Arcadis (power generation, transportation, water infrastructure). With the potential for IoE being designed into these scales we will be paying special attention to the inherent challenges involving privacy, data security, reliability, etc. Eventually we will flush out background information on the role of IoE design at each of our four scales and provide stories of a successful user experience recipe for each.

To date, our Kagan work has primarily focused on the technology component of IoE, but throughout our research we have realized that for designers, it’s all about the user experience. How do we create user experiences where technology simplifies tasks, not complicates them? How does technology make us more aware of each other and of our environment? Can we increase the quality of the user experience while simultaneously cutting costs and resource utilization? As we’ve said before, using technology isn’t new for humans, but the speed of its progress sometimes leaves us focusing on technology for technology’s sake or stumbling over how it fits holistically into our lives. For now, I think I could sum it up with this question: does the Internet of Everything concept show potential for creating more meaningful human experiences, or does it simply take us one step further down the rabbit hole of an over dependency on technology?

Connectivity is the subject of The 2014 Leonard S. Kagan Fellowship for Research and Exploration—a big topic kept purposefully loose to encourage broad thinking about the power of great ideas to bring people together. This year’s winning entries showed clarity of vision and tackle various aspects of connectivity—digital, social and physical, respectively—and all reflect an appreciation for the power of connections to give us new insights and greater control over the impact of our work. In the next few months, follow You Are Here to see the progress of these teams as they attempt to better connect RTKL to systems and information. Be sure to check out Part 1 of “The Internet of Everything: World of IoE Design”

Images via Flickr (David Berkowitz)& Wikimedia (Amanitamano)