Data, Data Everywhere, and Still Too Hard to Link: Insights from User Interactions with Diabetes Apps

For those with chronic conditions, such as Type 1 diabetes, smartphone apps offer the promise of an affordable, convenient, and personalized disease management tool. How- ever, despite significant academic research and commercial development in this area, diabetes apps still show low adoption rates and underwhelming clinical outcomes. Through user-interaction sessions with 16 people with Type 1 diabetes, we provide evidence that commonly used interfaces for diabetes self-management apps, while providing certain benefits, can fail to explicitly address the cognitive and emotional requirements of users. From analysis of these sessions with eight such user interface designs, we report on user requirements, as well as interface benefits, limitations, and then discuss the implications of these findings. Finally, with the goal of improving these apps, we identify 3 questions for designers, and review for each in turn: current shortcomings, relevant approaches, exposed challenges, and potential solutions

Smartphone mediated behavioral change towards sustainable lifestyle

El objetivo de esta tesis es apoyar a individuos particulares en su búsqueda de un estilo de vida más sostenible a través de la creación de un producto con la capacidad de cambiar los comportamientos y hábitos de los usuarios en su vida cotidiana. Así, el producto diseñado está basado en el diseño de cambio de comportamiento y está personalizado a las actuales aspiraciones del usuario hacia un estilo de vida sostenible. El producto está canalizado a través de la mundialmente utilizada tecnología del smartphone en forma de una aplicación llamada OURS, teniendo una lógica que prioriza el servicio desde su núcleo, mediando el acceso a diversos servicios e información en una escala de vecindario. Para conseguir este objetivo, esta tesis sintetiza las más recientes narrativas con fundamento científico que explican qué determina los estilos de vida sostenibles y cómo pueden ser alcanzados por un individuo particular. Además, identifica los desafíos actuales y las oportunidades relacionadas con la crisis mundial provocada por la COVID-19, siguiendo un enfoque desde la base para el cambio y la Platform Economy.The goal of this thesis is to support individuals in pursuing a sustainable lifestyle by creating a product, capable of changing users’ behaviors and habits in their everyday life. Thus, the designed product is based on behavioral change design tailored to the existing user’s aspirations towards a sustainable lifestyle. The product is channeled via globally used smartphone technology as mobile application called OURS, having service-dominant logic in its core, mediating access to various services and information in a scale of a neighborhood. To achieve this goal this thesis synthesizes recent science-based narratives on what determines sustainable lifestyles and how they could be embraced by an individual. Moreover, it identifies current challenges and opportunities regarding the COVID-19 world-wide crises, bottom-up approach for change and the Platform Economy

Coffee maker patterns and the design of energy feedback artefacts

Smart electricity meters and home displays are being installed in people’s homes with the assumption that households will make the necessary efforts to reduce their electricity consumption. However, present solutions do not sufficiently account for the social implications of design. There is a potential for greater savings if we can better understand how such designs affect behaviour. In this paper, we describe our design of an energy awareness artefact – the Energy AWARE Clock – and discuss it in relation to behavioural processes in the home. A user study is carried out to study the deployment of the prototype in real domestic contexts for three months. Results indicate that the Energy AWARE Clock played a significant role in drawing households’ attention to their electricity use. It became a natural part of the household and conceptions of electricity became naturalized into informants’ everyday language

Engaging without greenwashing: a holistic gamified approach to foster eco-friendly behavior in a renewable energy crowdfunding platform

To achieve the necessary transformation towards a low carbon society, it is obvious that all the coming technological innovations should also be accompanied by gargantuan shifts in lifestyle patterns. This study aims at identifying a possible gamified engagement strategy that fosters pro-environmental behavior for a renewable-energy projects crowdfunding app. Besides the growing interest of industry in gamification, there is few research on how to implement such approaches in a way it fosters pro-environmental behavior. The research provides an integrative literature review of subjects such as environmental psychology, gamification and human computer interaction, to finally outline a comprehensive framework to guide practitioners in fostering sustainable behavior within the business world, in the context of a renewable energy crowdfunding platform, and also the analysis of a business case, Seeds. While many game elements and marketing techniques can be positive for increased customer engagement and business development, they can be severely counterproductive as a strategy for climate change public engagement, and contrast sharply with the long-term sustainable practices that are required to transform to a climate neutral society. This work suggests that the corporate ethos might do more harm than good when it comes to fight climate change. Some widely spread corporate strategies to drive customer engagement, such as the usage of pervasive technology to build habits on users, are based on unmoral principles that invite critique, and perhaps, rejection. Finally, the limitations of the research suggest than additional validation is required, leaving several unresolved questions that could drive further scientific researchPara alcançar a transformação necessária em direção a uma sociedade de baixo carbono, é óbvio que todas as inovações tecnológicas que virão também devem ser acompanhadas por mudanças gigantescas nos padrões de estilo de vida. Este estudo tem como objetivo identificar uma possível estratégia de marketing gamificada que fomente o comportamento pró-ambiental para um aplicativo de crowdfunding de projetos de energia renovável. Além do crescente interesse da indústria pela gamificação, há poucas pesquisas sobre como implementar tais abordagens de forma a promover um comportamento pró-ambiental. A pesquisa fornece uma revisão integrativa da literatura de assuntos como psicologia ambiental, gamificação e interação humano-computador, para finalmente delinear uma estrutura abrangente para orientar os profissionais na promoção de um comportamento sustentável no mundo dos negócios, no contexto de uma plataforma de crowdfunding de energia renovável, e também a análise de um caso de negócios, Seeds. Embora muitos elementos do jogo e técnicas de marketing possam ser positivos para um maior engajamento do cliente e desenvolvimento de negócios, eles podem ser severamente contraproducentes como uma estratégia para o engajamento público da mudança climática e contrastam fortemente com as práticas sustentáveis de longo prazo que são necessárias para se transformar em um clima sociedade neutra. Este trabalho sugere que o ethos corporativo pode fazer mais mal do que bem quando se trata de combater as mudanças climáticas. Algumas estratégias corporativas amplamente difundidas para impulsionar o envolvimento do cliente, como o uso de tecnologia difundida para criar hábitos nos usuários, baseiam-se em princípios morais que convidam à crítica e, talvez, à rejeição. Finalmente, as limitações da pesquisa sugerem que uma validação adicional é necessária, deixando várias questões não resolvidas que podem conduzir a pesquisas científicas adicionaisObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::12 - Producció i Consum Responsables::12.6 - Encoratjar les empreses, en especial les grans empreses i les empreses transnacionals, a adoptar pràctiques sostenibles i a incorporar informació sobre la sostenibilitat en el seu cicle de presentació d’informe

Principles of Green Design: Analyzing User Activities and Product Feedback

This study investigated the design principles applicable to environmentally friendly product design. A practical approach was taken to examine principles that aid designers in producing an eco-friendly product that consumers will enjoy and use. Another important aspect to this study was to determine whether a positive environmental attitude or a willingness to change for the environment relates to environmentally responsible behavior. Two hypotheses were developed for successful eco-friendly products and then appropriate products were purchased to test these hypotheses. The activity hypothesis claims that if a product adds user activities, is less likely to be used. The feedback hypothesis states that a product that gives clear feedback is more likely to be used than a product that does not. Student participants took home products to use for one week, recorded each time they used the products, and then completed surveys afterword. One survey determined product success and the second measured environmental consciousness. The sample size for the experiment was 15 participants. The results indicate that there may be a positive relation between environmental attitude and environmental behavior, both of which were measured through surveys. For the activity hypothesis, we supposed that the product not adding user activities would be used more than the product adding activities. However, the experimental results have shown that this may not always be the case. For the feedback hypothesis, we speculated that visual reminder feedback and energy savings feedback both increase product usage. Combining both types of feedback was assumed to increase product usage more than any single type of feedback. The results for this part of the experiment indicate errors in the experimental design, but also aid in the future work for this research experiment

Evaluating Consumer’s Behaviour Towards Investing in Sustainable Luxury Real Estate

This study aimed to explore consumer's investment intentions toward sustainable luxury real estate by examining the impact of their environmental concerns, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behaviour control, and perception of buying/investing in sustainable luxury real estate. The study also looked at how customer gender and age affected the difference between purchase intentions for luxury real estate that is sustainable and luxury real estate that is not sustainable. This study employs a conceptual framework that expands the Theory of Planned Behavior by adding a new dimension (environmental concern), which previous research has shown to be extremely important in influencing customer purchase intentions for sustainable goods. 282 respondents were surveyed online and provided with a questionnaire, which was utilized to gather data. People in the age range of 18 to 40 who live in various parts of the world were the survey's target respondents since environmental concerns are not exclusive to any one nation or geographic area. The Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet was used to code and enter the data, and IBM SPSS version 26 was used for the analysis. The results of the overall modelling testing show a high influence of environmental concern, subjective norm, attitude and consumer perception on consumers’ purchase intention for environmentally sustainable luxury real estate. A considerable disparity between women and men customers as well as between various age groups was found in the research on gender variations in consumer's perceptions of sustainable luxury real estate

Approaches to Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) in the Home

When designing and implementing an intelligent energy conservation system for the home, it is essential to have insight into the activities and actions of the occupants. In particular, it is important to understand what appliances are being used and when. In the computational sustainability research community this is known as load disaggregation or Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM). NILM is a foundational algorithm that can disaggregate a home’s power usage into the individual appliances that are running, identify energy conservation opportunities. This depth report will focus on NILM algorithms, their use and evaluation. We will examine and evaluate the anatomy of NILM, looking at techniques using load monitoring, event detection, feature ex- traction, classification, and accuracy measurement.&nbsp

The Limits of Evaluating Sustainability

Designing technology with sustainability in mind is becoming more and more important, especially considering future scenarios of limited resources where the world’s current lifestyle of wasteful consumption needs to change. But how can researchers believably argue that their solutions are indeed sustainable? How can consumers and technology users reliably acquire, understand, and apply information about environmental sustainability? Those questions are difficult to answer, especially in research domains where the impact on sustainability is not immediately measurable, such as sustainable HCI. The evaluation of sustainability is an ongoing problem that is often glossed over, but we believe the community needs to intensify its efforts to articulate its evaluation methods to other disciplines and external stakeholders. Even if those disciplines and stakeholders understand the importance of designing for sustainability, we need convincing arguments – such as validation through thorough evaluations – to showcase why a specific design solution works in the real world. In this paper, we analyze this problem by highlighting examples of sustainable HCI research in which evaluation of sustainability failed. We also look at previous research that sought to address this issue and discuss how their solutions can be generalized – and when they might fail. While we do not have the final answer, our intention is to start a discussion as to why sustainable HCI research is oftentimes not doing enough to justify the validity of its solutions. We close our paper by suggesting a few examples of what we believe to be potential ways to address those issues and take action to improve the evaluation of sustainability