Behaviour change at work: Empowering energy efficiency in the workplace through user-centred design

Copyright @ 2011 University of California eScholarship RepositoryCO2 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 influence more energy efficient behaviour at work in areas such as HVAC, lighting and equipment use. The project comprises an ethnographic research phase, a participatory design programme involving building users in the design of interventions, and iterative trials in a large office building in central London

Exploring patients’ views toward giving web-based feedback and ratings to general practitioners in England : a qualitative descriptive study

Background: Patient feedback websites or doctor rating websites are increasingly being used by patients to give feedback about their health care experiences. There is little known about why patients in England may give Web-based feedback and what may motivate or dissuade them from giving Web-based feedback. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore patients’ views toward giving Web-based feedback and ratings to general practitioners (GPs), within the context of other feedback methods available in primary care in England, and in particular, paper-based feedback cards. Methods: A descriptive exploratory qualitative approach using face-to-face semistructured interviews was used in this study. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 18 participants from different age groups in London and Coventry. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using applied thematic analysis. Results: Half of the participants in this study were not aware of the opportunity to leave feedback for GPs, and there was limited awareness about the methods available to leave feedback for a GP. The majority of participants were not convinced that formal patient feedback was needed by GPs or would be used by GPs for improvement, regardless of whether they gave it via a website or on paper. Some participants said or suggested that they may leave feedback on a website rather than on a paper-based feedback card for several reasons: because of the ability and ease of giving it remotely; because it would be shared with the public; and because it would be taken more seriously by GPs. Others, however, suggested that they would not use a website to leave feedback for the opposite reasons: because of accessibility issues; privacy and security concerns; and because they felt feedback left on a website may be ignored. Conclusions: Patient feedback and rating websites as they currently are will not replace other mechanisms for patients in England to leave feedback for a GP. Rather, they may motivate a small number of patients who have more altruistic motives or wish to place collective pressure on a GP to give Web-based feedback. If the National Health Service or GP practices want more patients to leave Web-based feedback, we suggest they first make patients aware that they can leave anonymous feedback securely on a website for a GP. They can then convince them that their feedback is needed and wanted by GPs for improvement, and that the reviews they leave on the website will be of benefit to other patients to decide which GP to see or which GP practice to join

Public awareness, usage and predictors for the use of doctor rating websites : a cross-sectional study in England

Background: With the advent and popularity of social media and consumer rating websites, as well as the emergence of the digitally engaged patient, there has been an increased interest in doctor rating websites or online patient feedback (OPF) websites, both inside and outside academia. There is however little known about how the public across England view such rating websites as a medium to give patient experience feedback. Objective: The aim was to measure and understand public awareness and usage of doctor rating websites as a mode to give experiential feedback about GPs in general practice in England, within the context of other feedback methods, so that the value of OPF websites from the patients’ perspective could be determined. Methods: A mixed methods population questionnaire was designed, validated and implemented face to face using a cross-sectional design with a representative sample of the public (n=844) in England. The results of the questionnaire were analysed using chi square tests, binomial logistic regressions and content analysis. Results: Public awareness of OPF websites as a channel to leave experiential feedback about GPs was found to be low at 15% (128/844); however, usage and future consideration to use OPF websites was found to be extremely low, with current patient usage at just 0.36% (3/844), and patient intention to use OPF in the future at 18% (150/844). Furthermore, only 4-5% of those who would consider leaving feedback in the future selected doctor rating websites as their most preferred method to leave feedback about a GP, and more than half of patients said they would consider leaving feedback about GPs using another method, but not using an OPF website. Conclusions: The findings appear to suggest that OPF websites may not be an effective channel for collecting feedback on patient experience in general practice, and feedback on OPF websites is not likely to be representative of the patient experience in the near future. This challenges the use of OPF not just as a mode for collecting patient experience data, but for patient choice and monitoring too. We recommend the NHS to channel its investment and resources towards providing more direct and private feedback methods in general practice (such as opportunities for face-to-face feedback, email-based feedback and web-based private feedback forms), as these are much more likely to be used currently by the majority of patients in England. Keywords: online reviews; Physician quality; Primary Care; Internet; Quality patient empowerment; quality transparency; public reporting

Recruiting general practitioners in England to participate in qualitative research : challenges, strategies, and solutions

In 2012, I conducted my first PhD study exploring general practitioners’ attitudes toward online patient feedback. After designing the research questions and topic guide to conduct the interviews, I reviewed existing literature where authors described recruiting general practitioners to take part in research. I found there was some focus in the literature on the challenges associated with low general practitioner participation in survey-based and intervention studies, but little that described the process, experience, and challenges associated with recruiting general practitioners to take part in qualitative research. Although general practitioners are known to be a difficult group to recruit to take part in research, the recruitment process I experienced was much more challenging than I had anticipated. This case study sheds light on my experience of recruiting 20 general practitioners in England to an interview-based study, and outlines a critical reflection on the eight strategies used for recruitment. I started by using traditional methods such as postal invitations and faxes to recruit general practitioners. Due to the very low success rate, I resorted to using more inexpensive and creative methods, such as sending an invitation letter through email, advertising in general practitioner Email Newsletters, seeking help from existing research networks, recruiting through friends and acquaintances, and using social media. In this case study, I also describe the participants’ (general practitioners’) motivations for taking part in the study, and I conclude with offering suggestions on how to maximize response rates to general practitioner-based qualitative studies in England

A study of major coding techniques for digital communication Final report

Coding techniques for digital communication channel

Preliminary results of the Mariner IV radio occultation measurements of the upper atmosphere of Mars

Mariner IV radio occultation measurements of Mars upper atmospher

Preliminary results of the Mariner IV OCCULATION measurement of the atmosphere of Mars

Mariner IV radio occultation measurement of Mars atmospher

The impact of cuts in legal aid funding of private family law cases

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) made deep cuts to legal aid in the UK from April 2013, withdrawing state aid from almost all private family law cases. The paper is based on the findings of a micro-study of solicitors and Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx) in Kent and London to investigate the impact of LASPO cuts on their work. The findings suggest that: legal aid firms have closed or merged; legal aid work is often partially carried out in solicitors’ own time; ‘unbundled’ services for litigants in person (LIPs) are increasingly common; and family cases are being complicated and extended by the new ubiquity of the LIP. Respondents suggest that litigants may increasingly be ‘giving up’ on pursuing their cases, with clear implications for financial justice and contact with children. Further research is needed into the financial and affective impact of the cuts and the distribution of losses and difficulties between genders. The study, however, suggests the likelihood of post-separation poverty, debt and capital losses increasing in the post-LASPO environment, and that firms and CABx are having to find various methods of dealing with clients abandoned by the stat