Building an Awesome UX
Pleased to have this published working on next Seeking Stackable Semantics with the follow-up Building Emotion keep tuned for the saga of People-powered Building
June 11, 2018 - Building Automation
By Ken Sinclair
UX means “user experience” and refers to a person's emotions and attitudes about using a service. Whether you view the word “building” as a noun or a verb, we as an industry need to create awesome user experiences.
As an old guy who's been writing about building automation for over 20 years, I see from history that change is very slow. Before I founded automatedbuildings.com in 1994, I was working as an energy/automation consultant, renaming energy management control systems (EMCS) as “client comfort systems” (CCS). That was the start of humanistic digital inclusion and the acknowledgment of the client as the user. During this project, I learned the power of HTML and Internet as a valuable part of any UX. The CCS Manual is still online today, proving the longevity of an online user interface and the virtual world.
In 1999 we started AutomatedBuildings.com, during the dot-com days. We wrote, “we have selected this article to be in our first launch issue because we think it sends us all a wake-up call as to how significant the internet is going to be in the future.” The concept of a large building as an internet identity with its own web address is now the latest step in presenting and managing your automated buildings.
What has changed in 20 years of the Internet? Cost is down; speed is up, everything has an IP address; the Internet has become clouded with powerful microcomputers on the edge self-learning and sharing their intelligence with everyone who is continuously connected.
Founder, Publisher and Owner at AutomatedBuildings.com
6 年Patrick great comments buildings are built by the wrong people for the wrong purpose and then the inhabitants must work out how to make these environments livable the exception to this rule is a software campuses place a much higher value on their people and guide their architects and Consultants much closer I'm coming to the conclusion that we need to separate physical building and emotion building this will be the topic of my next article
IoT engineer & designer; Master Controls integrator; BACnet Systems Engineer
6 年In my humble opinion there is a knowledge sharing issue that needs to be resolved by all involved. From where I sit, as a BAS/IoT implementer for building owners, the "Open UX" conversation is very rarely happening for the space occupant. Many building operators, of the facilities that do install building IoT systems, want absolutely nothing to do with the tenants/occupants having anything to do with the UX for the BAS/IOT systems. A minor exception is the very cool looking "eco energy/green info kiosks" in the lobby's if the owner gets some government "green money" handout to do it. The potential legal liabilities of tenants / occupants finding out that the building owners/operators are running the building for maximum energy efficiency versus tenant comfort could bring out the lawyers in a hurry. Just in the schools/universities alone, where operators regularly close off outside air ventilation to save energy costs, these facility operators could be in trouble by implementing a product like Open BAS UX sharing "Comfy" as an example. Still some giant mountains to cross before we start seeing the kind of UX some have been talking about. It will be interesting to see how we over come these liability issues.
Founder, Publisher and Owner at AutomatedBuildings.com
6 年I agree we have some awesome UX but they are all pointing at the building owner and operator not the inhabitants of the building The tide has shifted to People powered building that UX is what I am speaking about
STSE at McKinstry
6 年Best out of the box would have to be Automated Logic. With little to no development time using WebCTRL customers get a user interface better than 99% of systems out there.