Matthew Harrison / RCA Industrial Design Engineering
working light: lighting control interfaces for an ageing workforce
As workforces around the world become progressively older, office lighting that is static and unresponsive does little for their physical and emotional needs. This project looks at ways to give users more variation and control.
Static and unresponsive office lighting that creates a dull and oppressive ambience not only fails to address our changing ergonomic and psychological needs during the course of the day; for an ageing workforce in particular, it fails to deliver adequate light levels that are essential for older people to be effective at work. Research associate Matthew Harrison discovered that where lighting products exist at all to address this problem, most are undermined by control interfaces that are poorly designed and as a result often ignored by those whom they are intended to benefit. This study has resulted in an intelligent online interface for lighting control, accessible over an intranet via a web-browser.
The early stages of the project explored technology that would allow light to change throughout the day and even suppress the sleep hormone melatonin to help people feel more alert at work. User research was conducted in offices to chart the lighting needs of individuals as their moods and activities change over the day. Findings were then integrated into the performance of Thorn’s existing ceiling luminaires, with user control provided by an online interface offering brightness and colour balance options. Five easy-to-use prototypes were tested online with 80 office workers to arrive at the optimal solution.
more on the first year of the project
