  Buildings form an essential part of modern life; people spend a significant
amount of their time in them, and they consume large amounts of energy. A
variety of systems provide services such as lighting, air conditioning and
security which are managed using Building Management Systems (BMS) by building
operators. To better understand the capability of current BMS and characterize
common practices of building operators, we investigated their use across five
institutions in the US. We interviewed ten operators and discovered that BMS do
not address a number of key concerns for the management of buildings. Our
analysis is rooted in the everyday work of building operators and highlights a
number of design suggestions to help improve the user experience and management
of BMS, ultimately leading to improvements in productivity, as well as
buildings comfort and energy efficiency.
