Summer Skybox: A Device Representing the Sky for Personalized Day Cycle

People are psychologically impacted by the unavoidable changes in sunrise and sunset times over a year. When people work remotely, the only natural cue that their room provides comes from the few windows; working at the office provides many more cues. To offset this deficiency, people use clocks and focus timers. They rely on abstract numbers that make them feel disconnected from nature. We present Summer Skybox, a device that displays a personalized day cycle using sun and sky color to represent time. A field study with six international students showed that Summer Skybox is helpful on shorter winter days. Additionally, some participants sensed a connection to their hometown and could better perceive the passage of time. Our findings confirm that experiencing the changes in daylight over a year does impact humans psychologically, and that our solution provides an effective way of representing the daylight cycle using natural cues.