We introduce evaluation probes for conducting emic, experiential evaluation of urban technologies "in the wild" without direct researcher presence. We commence with a thorough discussion and analysis of the original cultural probes, used by Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti to gain design inspiration, and their subsequent variations. We develop the concept of evaluation probes through careful re-conceptualization and application of the cultural probes in three successive studies conducted in the wild. We recount and reflect on our use of evaluation probes and discuss their merits and limitations in experiential emic evaluation.

Applications of adaptive and intelligent lighting technologies such as presence sensitive lighting, potentially offer solutions for reducing the energy consumption of road lighting while maintaining user comfort and safety. However, little is known about road users’ experiences of such lighting. To address this gap, we conducted a real-world case study of a presence sensitive roadway lighting on a collector road in a housing area in southern Finland. New, controllable LED lighting with PIR (passive infrared) presence sensors was implemented along the road, and test scenarios were designed, programmed, and tested. The lighting was adapted both to motor vehicles using the road and to the measured traffic density along it. Drivers’ experiences and attitudes toward the lighting were collected in a three-phase evaluation with questionnaires from the community of about 1000 households using the road as part of their daily mobility. The results indicate that as an experience, presence sensitive lighting in a road environment was at least as positive as traditional, uncontrolled lighting. User experiences of presence sensitive lighting did not differ from the experiences of uncontrolled lighting regarding pleasantness, uniformity, glare, and road visibility. Most of the drivers (86%) did not notice any dynamic change in the lighting. When informed about the tested lighting strategies, most of the participants (72%) would prefer either one of the intelligent lighting modes to be the permanent lighting solution. The results of this exploratory, real-world study point towards the potential feasibility of this technology from a user experience perspective, as the experienced stability of the lighting was unaltered in the tested scenarios; importantly, it also highlights the need to study adaptive roadway lighting further, especially through confirmatory studies in controlled settings.

Besides the many positive values relating to lighting, a wider international understanding is emerging that the amount of lighting and energy consumed must be reduced. In this paper, a case study results of developing a luminance-based method for measuring and analysing the visual-spatial light appearance of scarcely lit urban environments are presented and discussed. In the process, nocturnal urban views were analysed with observations and luminance camera measurements, and essential features for visual-spatial experiences were identified. According to the preliminary results, the chosen visual-spatial concepts – enclosure, open view, interspaces, framing, scale, detailing and user relation – that were tested in creating the analysis images, seem to be useful conceptual tools for framing quantitative analysis of complex luminance images of urban darkness. The results of this study help to develop sustainable and energy-efficient solution models and season dependant lighting design strategies for northern urban environments, respecting the values of darkness.

Minimizing the adverse effects of lighting and enabling safe and justified darkness are prerequisites for sustainable urban lighting. In this paper, we analyse the justifications and measures that 10 European cities have documented for protecting darkness in their strategic lighting documents such as lighting masterplans. Our aim is to form an overview of the state of darkness protection in European urban settings at the beginning of the 2020s. We hope that the situational overview helps the existing good practices to disseminate and supports steering of measures and development work related to urban lighting and darkness protection at different levels of governance and in research. After exploration of a larger set of material, ten cities and 1–2 documents from each were selected for thematic analysis: three Finnish cities, four other cities of similar size in the northern half of Europe and three more southern European cities. The most common justifications given by the cities for protecting darkness were ecological, relating to biodiversity, ecosystems and species of nature. Human-centred justifications included perspectives of health, well-being and comfort, cultural significance of darkness, and the notion that protecting darkness also creates more legible urban space. The cities present a wide variety of measures for protecting and restoring darkness and mitigating the harmful effects of lighting. Thematic outline and several categories are presented with examples in the article. To conclude, many good practices already exist, and cities would benefit from learning from each other. It seems important to raise awareness about the values of darkness, as well as of solutions that integrate the needs for lighting with the needs for darkness. The analysis raises further research questions on the use and usability of strategic lighting documents and long-term strategic planning to restore and protect urban darkness.