Design Science in Practice: Design and Evaluation of an Art Based Information System to Improve Indoor Air Quality at Schools

Indoor air quality has a significant effect on human performance. In addition, many health issues can be traced back to bad indoor room-climate. However, especially in Europe, pupils spend a majority of their learning life in school classes affected by poor room climate. Without an automatic heating, ventilation and air conditioning system these pupils and their teachers have to rely on manual ventilation by opening windows. Thereby, they often lack fundamental room climate quality information to effectively guide their behavior. Information systems (IS) and sensor technology can be a remedy to these challenges. Existing room climate monitoring systems regularly reveal major shortcomings, e.g. in respect to user interfaces, presentation of data, and systematic engagement. We want to address the aforementioned shortcomings and present an art IS, which reflects room conditions in real time through modifications of depicted art. The artifact is evaluated in a field experiment, conducted in an Austrian grammar school. The evaluation reveals that room climate measured in CO2 can indeed be improved significantly. In addition, pupils also perceive a significant room climate improvement. By implementing and evaluating the presented IS we pursue a research avenue which is dedicated to a more fundamental research questions: “Are hedonic, art-based IS superior to utilitarian, non-art-based IS in respect to usage and impact?”