Occupant Behavior
Introduction
Space occupants generally desire the ability to control the lighting in their environment. Studies have shown that individual preferences differ significantly across the population, whether one is considering the illuminance level that occupants prefer for given task or space, environmental conditions that produce discomfort or glare, or the preferred settings for shading devices. For this reason, many automated systems permit the user to override automatic settings. Some systems can even adjust future operation based on these user responses. Because individuals inherently prefer different lighting conditions, some energy savings can be obtained by providing the user with flexible control of the work plane illuminance, either through dimming or through bi-level control. It is for this reason that many energy codes require bi-level control in work spaces, and in particular within spaces that receive daylight.
In manipulating shading devices, many occupants set their shading devices to a position that provides comfortable room conditions and these devices remain in these positions for extended periods of time. Other users control their shades to address their needs and reset the shading devices at either the beginning or the end of the day.
- No publications specific to this section have been listed.
- Links
Lead Author(s):
- No publications general to this page have been listed.
- Links

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License