Data and comfort assessment

Participants’ heart rates and skin conductance are measured while they work in their natural office environment. This is combined with measurement of background light levels, temperature, CO₂ and sound levels. The analysis of these is split into two parts. The first suggests there are key differences between the senses: for component factors that are more energy-based (i.e. thermal comfort), sensors are more useful; while for component factors that are more information-processing-based (i.e. sound), sensors are less useful. The second analysis demonstrates that heart rate can be used to monitor the effect of sound levels on some but not all people. The technique could be used to monitor the environment in realtime and reveal differences in people’s sensitivity to noise. However, these analyses suggest that recordings from multiple sensors are needed to capture the complexity of user experience.