Triggers for Users’ Behaviours

Abstract

People behaviours have an undeniable influence both on building performance and on indoor environmental quality. To predict their actions and obtain accurate predictions, it is of primary importance the understanding of their decision-making process. This chapter offers an overview of the main factors that stimulate users' behaviours. It firstly proposes an analysis regarding objective aspects (i.e., environmental variables, time-related events and contextual factors), aiming at underlying the triggers for each adaptive action. Then, it focuses on subjective aspects (i.e., physiological, psychological and social factors), in particular , highlighting how people's attitudes change in the nZEB contexts. 4.1 Introduction One of the major unresolved issues regarding the energy-related behaviours concerns the interaction between occupants and building devices (e.g., windows, lights). In fact, since comfort conditions are individually defined, people modify the environment according to personal preferences and needs. This means that users' behaviours are not driven by deterministic rules but their adjustments vary according to both individual and contextual stimuli. Many studies [1-3] have been carried out with the aim to understand the factors that trigger users' actions and to classify them. The different aspects can be subdivided in two macro-categories: the first concerns concrete and objective characteristics which are linked to measurable aspects, while the second is related to personal and individual features which are peculiar for each person. The former macro-category includes environmental, time-related and contextual factors. The latter concerns physiological, psychological and social features. In addition to these classes, Peng et al. [1] included also the "random" category to consider unpredictable actions which depend on uncertain factors or follow unknown rules. Figure 4.1 displays the above-mentioned triggers, subdivided between the two macro categories, and reports several examples for each aspect.