Making the user more efficient: Design for sustainable behaviour (original) (raw)

User-Centred Design for Sustainable Behaviour

International Journal of …, 2008

Traditional eco-design has a strong focus on the supply side. Even when focusing on the use phase of products, still impacts directly under the control of the manufacturer dominate. However, the way users interact with a product may strongly influence the environmental impact of a product. Designers can try to influence this behaviour through the products they design. Several strategies have been proposed in the literature, such as eco-feedback and scripting. Existing literature in this field has its limitations. Publications either focus on a single strategy, or do not take a design perspective, or lack empirical data. This paper will present a typology of the different strategies available to designers. This typology will be illustrated with examples and experiments related to two sustainability problems, namely littering behaviour and energy using products. Furthermore a methodology will be presented for applying these strategies. This will be demonstrated in a case study on an energy meter.

User perspectives in the design of interactive everyday objects for sustainable behaviour

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2020

Addressing efficient management of energy has become a central objective due to the scarcity of traditional energy sources and global warming. To cope with this overarching issue, some technological solutions such as Smart Grids, Internet of Things or Demand response are proposed. However, the majority of them overlooks the role of human beings in the equation. Moreover, the very nascent body of research combining human and machine intelligence proposes methods, frameworks, and guidelines which vary depending on the application scenario complicating the selection of gold-standards to ensure seamless cooperation between smart devices and people. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to provide a set of design-hypotheses to devise augmented objects that ally with their users to reduce energy consumption. We expect designers, engineers, makers or even hobbyists in the intersection between technology-enablers (through IoT) and behavioural scientists to benefit from them. To this aim, we describe the results of a long-term study in office-based workplaces, where participants were randomly assigned to different experimental conditions (persuasion, dashboard, and automation) to increase their energy-efficient behaviour. Grounded Theory analysis was applied over qualitative data collected during focus group sessions obtaining five themes around a central category. The resulting themes were linked to design-hypotheses for IoT devices which were then tested through the implementation of a new IoT object also conceived for the workplace.

Sustainable Behaviour: A framework for the design of products for behaviour change

The increasing concern for sustainability related issues lead to the rise of new fields in design research, dedicated to limit the negative impact of the human activities on the environment and society. After addressing issues related to production , efficiency, recyclability and disassembly, designers start to recognize their responsibility in guiding users to behave in a more responsible and sustainable way. For this reason, designing products to support users' behaviour change is becoming one of the most popular trends in design research at the moment. To achieve the desired results design for behaviour change, and in particular, Design for Sustainable Behavior, exploits a variety of approaches. In this Chapter, we explore the use of Design for Sustainable Behavior techniques through a literature reviews of theories and case studies. Then, we defined a framework which describes the use of multisensory stimuli as elements to support different phases of interaction during the user experience with an interactive product. We relate this framework to previous works and then we discuss two case studies.

Design for sustainable behaviour

Routledge eBooks, 2017

The global impact of designed goods and the role designer's play in accelerating rapid, conspicuous consumption has long been recognised within the profession. As such, considerable effort has been directed towards reducing or mitigating negative environmental impacts caused by mass-manufacture and disposal through so called 'end of pipe' solutions. Less attention, however, has been placed on reducing the impact of use despite tacit acknowledgement amongst the design community that sustainable designs cannot reach their full potential without targeting user behaviour. Through increased focus on behaviour, and the implementation of suitably informative or persuasive strategies, designers can purposefully alter the way users interact with products to leverage more sustainable use patterns. This chapter provides design practitioners with an introduction to Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB). This is an emergent field of design practice which seeks to understand user behaviour in order to drive the development of products which encourage more sustainable use. Integrating inspirational case study examples drawn from their own and others' practice, the authors chart the origins of DfSB and describe its theories, strategies and design processes. Tools to aid strategy selection are introduced and key ethical considerations reflected on in relation to specific design phases. The authors offer practical advice on designing, installing and evaluating design interventions based on experience and conclude with a discussion of the current limitations and potential future developments in DfSB.

Target the Use Phase! Design for Sustainable Behaviour

One approach to further decrease the environmental impact of products is to target the use phase. According to the Design for Sustainable Behaviour approach different design strategies can be used to enable a more sustainable use of products by influencing the user's behaviour. The strategies suggested include matching products to users' current behaviours, enlightening users, spurring or steering the users towards more sustainable behaviours, and applying a force dimension to the products. Empirical studies demonstrate the feasibility of different strategies. However further knowledge is needed on which strategies to apply in which situations and for what problems.

Models of the user: designers' perspectives on influencing sustainable behaviour

J. of Design Research, 2012

Influencing more environmentally friendly and sustainable behaviour is a current focus of many projects, ranging from government social marketing campaigns, education and tax structures to designers' work on interactive products, services and environments. There is a wide variety of techniques and methods used, intended to work via different sets of cognitive and environmental principles. These approaches make different assumptions about 'what people are like': how users will respond to behavioural interventions, and why, and in the process reveal some of the assumptions that designers and other stakeholders, such as clients commissioning a project, make about human nature. This paper discusses three simple models of user behaviour-the pinball, the shortcut and the thoughtful-which emerge from user experience designers' statements about users while focused on designing for behaviour change. The models are characterised using systems terminology and the application of each model to design for sustainable behaviour is examined via a series of examples.

A Discussion on Specifications and Prototyping in Designing for Sustainable Behavior

Volume 1A: 36th Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, 2016

Today’s world is facing numerous problems due to an un-controlled waste of energy and of primary resources in general. To manage this, on one side designers are asked to improve the efficiency of products; on the other side, users must be trained toward a more sustainable lifestyle. Some researchers are exploring the idea of trying to change users’ behavior while interacting with products in order to make it more sustainable. This trend is known as “design for sustainable behavior” applied to energy/resources consumption issues. Our idea is to stimulate users in changing their behavior by introducing a multisensory communication with the product. This communication is not meant as warning messages informing the users about wrong habits/actions or something like; instead, it should consist of sensorial stimuli able to naturally drive users in performing the right actions. However, before designing these stimuli, it is fundamental to highlight the aspects and conditions that do not al...

Changing energy consumption behaviour through sustainable product design

Proceedings of the DESIGN 2008, …, 2008

Energy consumption during the use phase of electrical products’ lifecycle has a significant environmental impact, mainly determined by the user behaviour. Product designers are in a position to shape the way in which consumption occurs and to bridge the gap between environmental values and user everyday action. This paper analyzes the barriers to sustainable energy use and by linking the design strategy research with the psychological theories, the breakthrough points that potentially enable design to influence the user behaviour and habits are identified. Employing a user-centred approach, the results of a pilot study are presented that provide an understanding of user perceptions of environmental issues.

Making Sustainability Sustainable: Challenges in the Design of Eco-Interaction Technologies

The smart home is here. One area where smart home devices promise to deliver great benefits is in the control of home heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) systems. In this paper, we seek to inform the design of future heating and cooling systems by investigating users’ experiences with the Nest Learning Thermostat, a commercially available smart home device. We conducted a qualitative study where we compared people’s interactions with conventional thermostats with interactions with the Nest. A key finding was that the Nest impacted users’ pattern of HVAC control, but only for a while, and caused new problems in unrealized energy savings. In leveraging these findings, we create a set of design implications for Eco- Interaction, the design of features and human-system interactions with the goal of saving energy.

Behaviour Change at Work: empowering energy efficiency in the workplace through user-centred design

2011

CO2 emissions from non-domestic buildings - primarily workplaces - make up 18 percent of the UK's carbon footprint. A combination of technology advances and behavioural changes have the potential to make significant impact, but interventions have often been planned in ways which do not take into account the needs, levels of understanding and everyday behavioural contexts of building users - and hence do not achieve the hoped-for success.This paper provides a brief introduction to the Empower project, a current industrial-academic collaboration in the UK which is applying methods from user-centred design practice to understand diverse users' needs, priorities, mental models of energy and decision-making heuristics - as well as the affordances available to them - in a number of office buildings. We are developing and trialling a set of low-cost, simple software interventions tailored to multiple user groups with different degrees of agency over their energy use, which seek to ...