Development of a hybrid app-based survey methodology for evaluating the real-time indoor environmental quality in buildings

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and its effect on occupant well-being and comfort is an important area of study. This paper utilized the latest mobile app technology, hybrid app, to develop user-friendly periodic questionnaires in the responses of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) survey. This hybrid app technique is cost effective and easy to use, not only to users but also to administrators. The hybrid app makes the survey work become simple, fast and semi-real-time feedback can be realized by periodic questionnaires. A case study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the developed hybrid app, focusing on the occupants’ responses on the indoor environmental quality. More than 100 responses from The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) were invited to provide their feedback about their personal experience about IEQ at a newly built building. The feedbacks are collected by a mobile app based periodic questionnaire survey of personal feeling about IEQ in different time slots (the beginning, middle and end of the lecture). This Hybrid app based survey shows its huge advantage in our study to help researchers to launch a safe, efficient and high data quality survey easily. Comparing to the traditional paper based, web based and native app based survey methods, in terms of development, maintenance, cost and speed, mobile device features (camera, the GPS, the accelerometer, etc.) and device’s notification system in questionnaire survey. Furthermore, the hybrid app based survey methodology can be easily used in other survey area.