Table 2.
Sample research questions related to interdisciplinary research areas of HBI.
| Trust and collaboration |
| How might we better design novel interactions that increase trust and collaboration between built environments and their users? |
| How will these interactions change the behavior of humans and built environments? |
| How do, and what type of, interactions with building structures, systems, and operations influence how humans perceive, experience, and use spaces? |
| What types of user interfaces and modes of communication promote effective collaboration and trust to advance shared goals between the building and human occupants? |
| How does the level of automation affect trust in technology? |
| How does trust in technology change based on users' tasks in built environments? |
| How will novel HBIs change people’s expectations of the built environment? |
| How will the type of collaboration affect the way that humans use the built environments? |
| Decision-making and control |
| How will control systems respond to a diversity of human needs? |
| Should a bottom-up approach (intelligence growing from individual smart devices) or a top-down approach (a smart central building manager) be taken? Or is it this goal dependent, and for some goals, the system should consider a top-down approach, and for other goals, a bottom-up approach might be a better option |
| How do users react to intelligent and aware spaces or building (e.g., buildings that dynamically adjust the color temperature according to user activities or building geometry support users)? |
| How could smart systems be developed to be scalable and transferable? |
| Modeling and simulation |
| How can we generalize and incorporate well-being considerations into design tools (e.g., Building Information Modeling)? |
| Which physical and digital adaptations are most effective for specific populations/cultures/building styles? |
| How can the physical layout be designed to reflect the organizational structure, levels of sharing, and visibility (physically and conceptually)? |
| What are the tradeoffs between physical materials and digital representations? |
| How can computational models of human behavior account for the building occupants' cultural, physical, and psychological traits? |
| How can generative design approaches account for designers’ tacit knowledge? |
| How can Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) approaches replace or integrate traditional Multi Agent Systems (MAS), which often require long computational times? |
| What is the role of digital twins in HBI research? How can future building digital twins preserve building occupant privacy? |