“Always place people at the center of digitalization of buildings”

Although modern buildings can certainly be highly automated, the interaction with humans has not always been carefully considered. While people should be central, argues Thijs Bouman, Assistant Professor and Researcher of Social and Environmental Psychology at the University of Groningen, during his keynote at the Digital Building of the Future conference.

Bouman: “From a psychological angle, I want to approach the question of what motivates people: what is important to them? And what goals should digitizing buildings pursue? In my lecture I also want to address the question of whether digitization makes people happy. There is a conflict there: on the one hand, many people like to arrange matters themselves, especially if it is important to them. But that is not always possible, because their environment is not designed for this or it is too complex.”

“Digitalization can be very valuable in such situations, but it can also cause irritation. A simple example of this is lighting. People often forget to turn this off, for example because they have to go somewhere in a hurry. Then it would be nice if this happened automatically. At the same time, it can cause frustration if it doesn't work as it should. Most people are familiar with the situation where a dance has to be done during a meeting to get the lights back on. There are also privacy issues, in order to adapt digital solutions to users, data must be collected about these users.

Another disadvantage may be that digitalization makes people less involved in certain goals, such as sustainability. If this all happens automatically and people are little aware of it, then they are less likely to actively contribute to sustainability themselves.”

Dialogue
According to Bouman, it is therefore advisable to seek dialogue with the (end) users, such as the managers of a building but also people who use an office on a daily basis, for example: “What is very important is to communicate well with the users of digitized buildings. This way you ensure that important objectives for the organization, such as sustainability, can be achieved better and faster. In addition, many digital solutions are highly dependent on people. If people end up performing the wrong behaviors, a digital solution may no longer work effectively at all.”

It is essential that developers of digitalized building automation systems take users into account, Bouman believes. “Developers often rely too much on the technological possibilities of a product,” he says. “Certainly when developing digital solutions, a lot of thinking is done from the technical side. It is often automatically assumed that people will be happy with such a 'smart' solution and will act accordingly. This is often not the case in practice. So think about that in the design process, as well as in the period afterwards.”

Automation and end-user control
In addition, reliability and a degree of flexibility play an important role in digital products, the researcher believes: “Digitalization means that you must be able to trust a device to take certain actions properly. There you see a conflict arising. Digitization and automation is easy for the user, but at the same time people need control and still want to be able to influence a system. This can of course often be built in, but with too much control there is a risk that the entire system will be turned upside down by a (dissatisfied) end user. You also have to take that into account.”

During his lecture, Bouman hopes that his audience will remember that every solution must ultimately remain focused on people. “I think that digitalization is very important to remove certain barriers for people to act sustainably, for example. There is often the idea that people do not want to take that step, but that is not the case. In practice, an adjustment in behavior often proves to be too difficult or there are ingrained practices, where digitalization can offer a solution. So the immediate caveat is: don't go too far with digitization and continue to involve people. So go look at the interaction between the two.”