Environmental conservation in the domestic domain: the influence of technical design features and person-based factors.

This article presents two empirical studies (n=30, n=48) that are concerned with different forms of automation in interactive consumer products. The goal of the studies was to evaluate the effectiveness of two types of automation: perceptual augmentation (i.e. supporting users' information acquisition and analysis); and control integration (i.e. supporting users' action selection and implementation). Furthermore, the effectiveness of on-product information (i.e. labels attached to product) in supporting automation design was evaluated. The findings suggested greater benefits for automation in control integration than in perceptual augmentation alone, which may be partly due to the specific requirements of concumer product usage. If employed appropriately, on-product information can be a halpful means of information conveyance. The article discusses the implications of automation design in interactive consumer products while drawing on automation models from the work environment. unknown unknown