Smart meters: a users' view

ABSTRACT Smart meters are assumed to support energy conservation thanks to the information provided to the energy utilities; however, given their pervasive presence in consumers' homes, they could also provide feedback to the consumers/users. The present paper considers a precondition to this latter possibility, namely that the meter interface be usable to lay consumers. The study involved 40 participants, who were videorecorded while performing a set of reading tasks with the smart meter installed in their house, with or without the help of the users' manual; they were also asked to fill in a questionnaire to evaluate the meter after the task series. The tasks allowed to test the meter's interface on a series of typical usability dimensions: effectiveness, efficiency, comprehensibility, memorability. The results of the analysis pinpoint the importance of some aspects of the interface which can guide the improvement of the meters' usability: they are related to the terminology used, the actionability of the information provided, the navigability of its information system and the self-explanatoriness of the data displayed.