The Iterative Design of a University Energy Dashboard

Energy dashboards are monitoring and display systems that provide information aboutbuilding energy use. Dashboards may provide information, alarms, and complex trends tosupport engineers in identifying energy inefficiencies in a building. Public interfaces maycontain simpler trends, with a greater focus on aesthetics and framing of content topromote interest and engagement. We have developed the Campus Energy EducationDashboard (CEED), a map-based dashboard that shows energy data for buildings on alarge university campus. Analytic features, including energy use intensity metrics, realtimedemand data, and historic data are available for our engineer and data analyststakeholders. For students and staff, we focus on engagement features, such as providingcontext for the data, prioritizing aesthetics, and layering information in successive levelsof detail. CEED enables Facilities Management to improve energy efficiency andempowers building occupants with knowledge of and input into campus energyoperations. We will describe our design process, which included A/B and usability testingof design elements that informed successive iterations of the dashboard.