User friendliness and building automation - A conceptual approach to understanding perceived control

Building automation systems provide potential to optimise the energy consumption of buildings as well as to detect failures in the operation of buildings. Providing the occupants with control over the indoor environment is widely accepted to positively affect the occupant’s satisfaction. The system building-HVAC-automation-user is becoming more complex. So what does the term ‘perceived control’ really mean? Psychological constructs from social learning theory and personality psychology transferred to the field of personal control of the indoor environment will be discussed. There are already several models describing man-environment interaction or the importance of control for persons. These models exist in parallel and have not been interconnected and translated into models for the built environment, yet. The aim of this paper is to show how these models could be interconnected and to develop a conceptual approach explaining the role individual control plays for user satisfaction.