Sustainable consumption: towards action and impact. : International scientific conference November 6th-8th 2011, Hamburg - European Green Capital 2011, Germany: abstract volume

This volume contains the abstracts of all oral and poster presentations of the international scientific conference „Sustainable Consumption – Towards Action and Impact“ held in Hamburg (Germany) on November 6th-8th 2011. This unique conference aims to promote a comprehensive academic discourse on issues concerning sustainable consumption and brings together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines. In modern societies, private consumption is a multifaceted and ambivalent phenomenon: it is a ubiquitous social practice and an economic driving force, yet at the same time, its consequences are in conflict with important social and environmental sustainability goals. Finding paths towards “sustainable consumption” has therefore become a major political issue. In order to properly understand the challenge of “sustainable consumption”, identify unsustainable patterns of consumption and bring forward the necessary innovations, a collaborative effort of researchers from different disciplines is needed

Sustainable interaction with digital technologies : fostering pro-environmental behavior and maintaining mental health

One of the most essential challenges of the twenty-first century is to realize sustainability in everyday behavior. Daily, partly unconscious decisions influence environmental sustainability. Such everyday choices are increasingly shifted toward digital environments, as digital technologies are ubiquitous in a wide variety of everyday contexts. This yields the great potential to positively influence the users behavior toward more environmental sustainability when interacting with digital technologies, for example, through the use of digital nudging. But besides these benefits, research indicates that interacting with digital technologies can lead to a specific form of stress, also known as technostress, that can cause adverse health outcomes. Individuals increasingly suffer from or are at risk of mental health issues like depression or burnout. This demonstrates that it is essential to ensure a sustainable interaction with digital technologies that is both environmentally friendly and healthy, especially for the mind. Addressing individuals interaction with digital technologies requires a broad understanding from all perspectives. The Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) framework represents a guiding structure for studying the interaction of humans with digital technologies. Along with the guiding structure of the HCI framework, the seven research articles included in this dissertation aim to contribute to sustainable interaction with digital technologies. The focus is on two outcomes resulting from the interaction: First, fostering pro-environmental behavior and, second, maintaining mental health. After an introductory first chapter, Chapter 2 focuses on the outcome of fostering pro-environmental behavior when interacting with digital technologies using digital nudging. Chapter 2.1 contributes to a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of DNEs in different behavioral contexts (HCI perspective context) that influence the individuals pro-environmental behavior (e.g., e-commerce shopping behavior). Chapters 2.2 and 2.3 zoom in on two of the behavioral contexts described in Chapter 2.1 to investigate and test the design and effectiveness of specific DNEs in an e-commerce shop and a smart home app (HCI perspective technology) through online experiments. While prior research concentrated on the effectiveness of different feedback nudge features (FNFs) (e.g., different update frequencies), Chapter 2.4 investigates the influence of 25 identified FNFs on user satisfaction in a smart home app through a card sorting approach followed by an online survey based on the Kano model (HCI perspective human). Chapter 3 puts focuses on the outcome of maintaining mental health when interacting with digital technologies, thus avoiding technostress. Chapter 3.1 concentrates on the role of the organization in preventing technostress among their employees (HCI perspective context). It introduces and characterizes 24 primary and secondary technostress prevention measures and determines the relevance of primary prevention measures in reducing different sources of technostress (technostress creators). Out of the 24 technostress prevention measures, two specific measures (adopt a stress-sensitive digital workplace design and use gamification) are addressed in Chapters 3.2 and 3.3. Through a large-scale online survey, Chapter 3.2 derives an understanding of the characteristic profiles of technologies used at the digital workplace, their interplay, and how they influence technostress (HCI perspective technology). Chapter 3.3 focuses on the individuals appraisal (HCI perspective human) of a demanding situation when interacting with digital technologies. After conducting an online experiment, Chapter 3.3 finds that the integration of gamification elements (e.g., points or levels) in digital technologies can reduce the individuals threat appraisal. Lastly, Chapter 4 discusses the results of the seven included research articles and provides an outlook for future research. In summary, this dissertation aims to provide research and practice with new insights into creating a sustainable interaction with digital technologies to foster pro-environmental behavior and maintain mental health.Die nachhaltige Gestaltung des Lebens eine der zentralen Herausforderung des einundzwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Alltägliche, teils unterbewusste Entscheidungen haben Einfluss auf die ökologische Nachhaltigkeit. Diese Entscheidungen werden durch die Allgegenwärtigkeit digitaler Technologien zunehmend in digitalen Umgebungen getroffen. Dies birgt das Potenzial, die Entscheidungen und somit das Verhalten der Nutzer:innen bei der Interaktion mit digitalen Technologien, beispielsweise durch Digital Nudging, positiv in Richtung ökologischer Nachhaltigkeit zu beeinflussen. Doch neben diesen Vorteilen zeigt die Forschung, dass die Interaktion mit digitalen Technologien eine spezifische Form von Stress, bekannt unter dem Begriff Technostress, auslösen kann, die zu negativen gesundheitlichen Folgen führen kann. Immer mehr Menschen leiden unter psychischen Krankheiten wie Depressionen oder Burnout oder sind akut gefährdet, diese zu entwickeln. Das zeigt, dass eine nachhaltige Interaktion mit digitalen Technologien sowohl umweltfreundlich als auch gesund, insbesondere für die Psyche, sein sollte. Das erfordert zunächst ein umfassendes Verständnis für die Problematik und muss deshalb aus allen relevanten Perspektiven betrachtet werden. Das Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) Framework stellt eine Struktur für die Untersuchung der Interaktion von Menschen mit digitalen Technologien bereit. Das Framework stellt einen ganzheitlichen Ansatz zur Strukturierung und Klassifizierung der Forschung entlang der drei verschiedenen Perspektiven dar. Orientiert an dieser Struktur zielen die sieben Forschungsartikel dieser Dissertation darauf ab, einen Beitrag zur nachhaltigen Interaktion mit digitalen Technologien zu leisten. Dabei liegt der Fokus auf den beiden Ergebnissen der Förderung des umweltfreundlichen Verhaltens und der Aufrechterhaltung der psychischen Gesundheit. Nach dem einleitenden ersten Kapitel fokussiert Kapitel 2 die Förderung eines umweltfreundlichen Verhaltens bei der Interaktion mit digitalen Technologien durch die Verwendung von Digital Nudging. Durch eine strukturierte Literaturanalyse und der anschließenden Entwicklung eines Frameworks trägt Kapitel 2.1 zu einem tieferen Verständnis und einem Überblick der Effektivität von DNEs in verschiedenen Verhaltenskontexten (HCI Perspektive Kontext), die umweltfreundliches Verhalten bestimmen (z.B. Einkaufsverhalten), bei. In den Kapiteln 2.2 und 2.3 werden zwei der in Kapitel 2.1 betrachteten Kontexte vertieft und sowohl das Design als auch die Effektivität spezifischer DNEs in einem E-Commerce-Shop (Kapitel 2.2) und einer Smart Home App (Kapitel 2.3) in Online-Experimenten untersucht (HCI Perspektive Technologie). Kapitel 2.4 konzentriert sich das gut erforschte und wirksame DNE Feedback zur Förderung von energiesparendem Verhalten. Während sich bisherige Forschung auf die Effektivität verschiedener Feedback Nudge Features (FNFs) konzentriert (z.B. unterschiedliche Aktualisierungsfrequenzen), wird in Kapitel 2.4 der Einfluss von 25 identifizierten FNFs auf die Nutzerzufriedenheit mit Hilfe eines Card Sortings und einer Online-Befragung basierend auf dem Kano Modell untersucht (HCI Perspektive Mensch). In Kapitel 3 liegt der Schwerpunkt auf dem Ziel der Aufrechterhaltung der psychischen Gesundheit und somit der Vermeidung von Technostress. Kapitel 3.1 konzentriert sich auf die Rolle der Organisation bei der Prävention von Technostress bei Mitarbeiter:innen (HCI Perspektive Kontext). Basierend auf einer Delphi-Studie werden 24 primäre und sekundäre Technostress-Präventionsmaßnahmen vorgestellt und charakterisiert, sowie deren Relevanz zur Vermeidung von Technostress eingeschätzt. Von den 24 Maßnahmen werden zwei spezifische Maßnahmen (Gestaltung eines stresssensiblen digitalen Arbeitsplatzes" und Einsatz von Gamification) in Kapitel 3.2 und 3.3 behandelt. Kapitel 3.2 trägt durch eine groß angelegte Umfrage zu einem Verständnis für die Charakteristika der am digitalen Arbeitsplatz eingesetzten Technologien und deren Einfluss auf Technostress bei (HCI Perspektive Technologie). Kapitel 3.3 konzentriert sich auf das Individuum und dessen Wahrnehmung einer potenziellen Technostress-Situation bei der Interaktion mit digitalen Technologien (HCI Perspektive Mensch). Durch ein Online-Experiment zeigt sich, dass die Integration von Gamification-Elementen in digitalen Technologien die bedrohende Wahrnehmung der gegebenen Situation des Einzelnen reduzieren kann. Zusammenfassend zielt diese Dissertation darauf ab, Forschung und Praxis mit neuen Erkenntnissen zu einer nachhaltigen Interaktion von Menschen mit digitalen Technologien zu bereichern, die sowohl umweltfreundliches Verhalten fördert als auch die psychische Gesundheit aufrechterhält und somit zu den aktuellen Nachhaltigkeitsbemühungen beiträgt

Living Innovation Laboratory Model Design and Implementation

Living Innovation Laboratory (LIL) is an open and recyclable way for multidisciplinary researchers to remote control resources and co-develop user centered projects. In the past few years, there were several papers about LIL published and trying to discuss and define the model and architecture of LIL. People all acknowledge about the three characteristics of LIL: user centered, co-creation, and context aware, which make it distinguished from test platform and other innovation approaches. Its existing model consists of five phases: initialization, preparation, formation, development, and evaluation. Goal Net is a goal-oriented methodology to formularize a progress. In this thesis, Goal Net is adopted to subtract a detailed and systemic methodology for LIL. LIL Goal Net Model breaks the five phases of LIL into more detailed steps. Big data, crowd sourcing, crowd funding and crowd testing take place in suitable steps to realize UUI, MCC and PCA throughout the innovation process in LIL 2.0. It would become a guideline for any company or organization to develop a project in the form of an LIL 2.0 project. To prove the feasibility of LIL Goal Net Model, it was applied to two real cases. One project is a Kinect game and the other one is an Internet product. They were both transformed to LIL 2.0 successfully, based on LIL goal net based methodology. The two projects were evaluated by phenomenography, which was a qualitative research method to study human experiences and their relations in hope of finding the better way to improve human experiences. Through phenomenographic study, the positive evaluation results showed that the new generation of LIL had more advantages in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.Comment: This is a book draf

Automated Crowdturfing Attacks and Defenses in Online Review Systems

Malicious crowdsourcing forums are gaining traction as sources of spreading misinformation online, but are limited by the costs of hiring and managing human workers. In this paper, we identify a new class of attacks that leverage deep learning language models (Recurrent Neural Networks or RNNs) to automate the generation of fake online reviews for products and services. Not only are these attacks cheap and therefore more scalable, but they can control rate of content output to eliminate the signature burstiness that makes crowdsourced campaigns easy to detect. Using Yelp reviews as an example platform, we show how a two phased review generation and customization attack can produce reviews that are indistinguishable by state-of-the-art statistical detectors. We conduct a survey-based user study to show these reviews not only evade human detection, but also score high on "usefulness" metrics by users. Finally, we develop novel automated defenses against these attacks, by leveraging the lossy transformation introduced by the RNN training and generation cycle. We consider countermeasures against our mechanisms, show that they produce unattractive cost-benefit tradeoffs for attackers, and that they can be further curtailed by simple constraints imposed by online service providers

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

Care Givers: Motivating and Enhancing Non-Profit Caregivers’ Experiences

The challenges of the aging world population continue to become more and more serious. Caregivers play a very important role in the caregiving system. There are different types of caregivers: family caregivers, who are typically a patient\u27s family member; and professional caregivers, who are trained and paid to care for their assigned patients. Another group yet are volunteer caregivers, the primary targeted user group of this research. Volunteer caregivers are both dramatically overlooked and making significant contributions to society. People who work as volunteer caregivers are mostly motivated by their kindness. Volunteer caregiving is typically a part-time job provided by a non-profit organization. Though such organizations may have unique systems, they often share many issues in common. Accordingly, this thesis’ aim is to enhance the experience and solve the problems encountered by volunteer caregivers. To achieve the goals, I completed some literature reviews, and market research to get the big picture of the current caregiving system and figure out the direction to go, where I found mentally stressed has been mentioned frequently. Then some user research has been done to identify the problem such as user interview emphatic study, observation, etc. Throughout the research process, the emphatic study gives me more insight into this design problem, where I basically try to be a volunteer caregiver in a non-profit caregiving organization. Based on all these research, then I made the user persona, and user journey map, where I figured out the problems that I need to solve are Lonely, lack of motivation, Communication, Mental health, Credibility and lack of information. Following several design processes and iterations, I developed a new caregiving system as the solution. Care Givers is a mobile application and smart nametag. With the help of the application, caregivers can work as a small team to provide services to a patient. They can take a shift or just work at the same time. Also, caregivers can share their photos, videos, and experiences with other users. What\u27s more, the smart nametag’s capacity to connect to the application efficiently establishes the caregivers’ credibility and ensures their safety. Care Givers offers these caregivers an improved user journey by creating a small team and supportive community in order to alleviate their reported loneliness. Also, the application provides all the information a caregiver needs