Feedback quality and environmentally friendly use of domestic central heating systems

The study examined the influence of system-embedded feedback on user behaviour during the environmentally friendly operation of a central heating system. A PC-based simulation, called CHESS, was developed to model the critical features of a central heating system. After having received 30 min of training on the simulation task, 60 participants worked on a series of operational scenarios under different levels of system feedback. In addition to the collection of various performance measures (e.g. energy consumption, energy wastage), a range of user variables was collected (e.g. environmental concern). As hypothesized, the results showed that increased feedback resulted in improved environmentally friendly performance and, more importantly, the specific feedback indicator influenced the type of strategy used to improve human - machine system performance. A major implication is that system designers need to develop feedback indicators that are chiefly influenced by user behaviour and are largely immune to factors that are beyond the user's control (e.g. weather conditions).