A persona-based approach to domestic energy retrofit

In order to improve the efficiency of the housing stock successfully, the offered technical solutions also need to meet occupants' needs and match their aspirations. Owner-occupiers present particular challenges: conflicting demands on their use of time and financial resources and their role as decision-makers for their own domestic renovation. A persona-driven study (based on user-centred design) was undertaken to explore the varying behaviours, attitudes and motivations towards home improvement for owner-occupiers who live in 'hard to treat' solid-walled dwellings. Five evidence-based personas are constructed that reflect archetypes, based on the outcomes of a qualitative study involving 33 owner-occupier householders in the East Midlands region of the UK. The adoption of a persona-based approach in response to the socio-technical challenges of energy renovation is important for understanding the specific drivers and appropriate range of policy responses for each persona. The persona development process is described and the success of the approach is evaluated in relation to the needs of policy developers, energy providers and product developers. Tailoring strategies to suit different personas will considerably enhance the diffusion of policy goals for low-energy retrofit and also allow business and technology developers to target an appropriate user. © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis

Service design and experience design: what unites us is greater than what divides us

This position paper draws on experiences of working within service design and experience design in the UK in order to reflect on the key differences and growing similarities between these two practices. The challenges faced by design agencies are described and in particular those arising from the closer alignment of design and business. This alignment is leading to a need for design teams to deliver process as well as digital products as project outcomes, requiring understanding of how to facilitate lasting transformation within organizations as well as how to design compelling user experiences. A skillset built upon three pillars: working with business, with people and with ideas is proposed to support further convergence of these two disciplines

The over 50s and their motivations for using technology

Despite the growing body of research into older adults‟ use of technology and the Internet, little is known about their motivations for taking up these products and services. The overall image that emerges from the literature is negative: low self-efficacy beliefs, computer anxiety and usability issues, which exacerbated by the decline of abilities that occurs naturally with ageing, prevent older people from using unfamiliar interactive consumer products. However, there is evidence to suggest that older adults want to be able to use new technology in order to feel included in society, and are willing to invest in learning how to use them provided the expected outcomes are perceived as obviously beneficial. This paper details a qualitative study designed to investigate what benefits older adults expect to gain from the technological products they acquire and use. The Technology Biography method was adapted and applied to participants in three age groups: 50-64, 65-75, and over 75 years old. The findings indicate greater acceptance of technology than expected from existing studies. This work is discussed in the context of older adults‟ motivations to use technology, and how their expectations and aspirations affect the uptake of these products

Designing in social benefits

It is a widely recognized fact that population ageing is progressing rapidly and this phenomenon is expected to continue in the next decades. The resulting demographic change is the driving force behind many current design challenges, including social isolation and loneliness which the older population is prone to. Although Inclusive Design has traditionally focused on enabling people to live independently, it seems that there are benefits to be gained from promoting social interaction through design. This paper details the results of a study of older adults‟ experiences with technology, particularly during the very early stages of interaction known as Out-of-Box Experience, from product acquisition through to first use. The Technology Biography method was adapted and conducted among twenty-four participants, grouped into 50-64 years old, 65-75 years old and over 76 years old. The findings indicate that even though older people value being able to perform tasks for themselves, they often enlist others as a means to engage in social interaction. This has strong implications for Inclusive Design, as designing social benefits into product experience could encourage the uptake of technology among older adults

Bottom-up grassroots innovation in transport: motivations, barriers and enablers

There is a growing phenomenon of ‘grassroots’ innovation, i.e. that triggered by individual users or communities (physical or virtual) seeking a solution to a personal or societal problem. This has great potential as a new source of sustainable transport innovations, but has been received little attention to date. This study conducted 16 in-depth interviews and a workshop with grassroots innovators in transport. A detailed thematic analysis of the interview data identified: catalysts for the idea and the motivation behind its pursuit; the barriers experienced (those that were overcome and those that were not); and the enablers that permitted the innovations to continue and to flourish. The paper concludes by identifying the conditions that need to exist for such innovations to be created, developed and exploited in order that their potential for increasing the sustainability of the transport system can be fulfilled

Exploring comfort in the home: towards an interdisciplinary framework for domestic comfort

With increasing costs of energy and the need to cut CO2 emissions, householders are actively encouraged to reduce their energy consumption. As the biggest uses of energy in the home are for space and water heating, research into comfort has predominately focused on the thermal environment. A wider perspective on comfort is provided by sociological practice-orientated research that seeks to understand how people create comfort at home and psychologically informed approaches relating to understanding the drivers for behavioural change. By gaining a multidisciplinary understanding of how and why occupants create comfort at home, opportunities to maximize energy demand reduction can potentially be identified. Findings from a study of householders and a review of the literature were used to create a framework that incorporates a three-tiered approach to understanding comfort in the home consisting of “comfort needs”, “comfort preferences” and the highest level, “comfort aspirations”

Moving textile artisans' communties towards a sustainable future: a theoretical framework

The current economic crisis is building momentum for designers to challenge the linear take-make-waste model and explore sustainable strategies, services and systems. With this in mind, this research explores how service design can encourage textile artisans’ communities towards a sustainable future, providing social engagement, rescuing cultural heritage, boosting economic development and enhancing environmental stewardship. Service design is here proposed as an approach to empower such communities, co-design collaborative services and sustain innovations within an enabling ecosystem. The paper focuses on the first study of this research where a theoretical framework to help textile artisans’ communities transitioning to a sustainable future was co-developed with academic experts in the field. A Nominal Group Technique and semi-structure interviews were used to collect data; results and findings are presented as barriers, enablers and a manifesto to encourage a sustainable future. To conclude, next steps and challenges posed by the envisioned future are discussed

All together now: factors that foster older adults' feelings of independence

The combination of current demographic trends, which see people living longer and in better health, and the increasing ubiquity of technology in modern life has encouraged research into making technology useful and usable by older adults. Older adults‘ relationship with technology has traditionally been pessimistically portrayed, but recent evidence suggests that older people want to be able to interact with new technologies in order to remain active and engaged with society. Older adults are keen to make their own choices and do things for themselves but there are tasks for which they often enlist the help of other people, regardless of their ability to perform them on their own. On the surface, this apparent paradox seems at odds with the essence of Inclusive Design, which has always been an advocate for independent living, particularly in later life. Yet maybe the problem lies with how ‗independence‘ is defined – usually taken to mean a lack of reliance on others – and how it is actually perceived by the older population. Therefore, the aim of the study presented in this paper is to explore how older adults conceptualise independence, dependence and interdependence. Probe kits distributed to people over the age of 50 were used as a primary method, and were followed up with supporting semistructured interviews. The probes were designed to enable participants to express themselves on various levels of creativity, generating rich material for design inspiration. Emerging results are presented here and their implications for the design of inclusive and desirable future products are discussed. Finally, the probe elements used in this study are reviewed as a method for collecting data from older adults

Out-of-box experiences: an opportunity for inclusive design

Out-of-box experiences: an opportunity for inclusive desig

Designing for video: investigating the contextual cues within viewing situations

The viewing of video increasingly occurs in a wide range of public and private environments via a range of static and mobile devices. The proliferation of content on demand and the diversity of the viewing situations means that delivery systems can play a key role in introducing audiences to contextually relevant content of interest whilst maximising the viewing experience for individual viewers. However for video delivery systems to do this they need to take into account the diversity of the situations where video is consumed, and the differing viewing experiences that users desire to create within them. This requires an ability to identify different contextual viewing situations as perceived by users. This paper presents the results from a detailed, multi-method, user centred field study with 11 UK based users of video-based content. Following a review of the literature (to identify viewing situations of interest on which to focus), data collection was conducted comprising observation, diaries, interviews and self-captured video. Insights were gained into whether and how users choose to engage with content in different public and private spaces. The results identified and validated a set of contextual cues that characterise distinctive viewing situations. Four archetypical viewing situations were identified: ‘quality time’, ‘opportunistic planning’, ‘sharing space but not content’ and ‘opportunistic self- indulgence’. These can be differentiated in terms of key contextual factors: solitary/shared experiences, public/private spaces, and temporal characteristics. The presence of clear contextual cues provides the opportunity for video delivery systems to better tailor content and format to the viewing situation or additionally augment video services through social media in order to provide specific experiences sensitive to both temporal and physical contexts