Persuasive Engagement: Exploiting lifestyle as a driving force to promote energy-aware use patterns and behaviours.

Electricity consumption has been rising significantly in the western world the last decades and this has affected the environment negatively. Efficient use and more energy conservative usage patterns could be ways to approach this problem. However, electricity has for a long time actively been hidden away and it is rarely thought of unless it ceases to exist. From the perspective of critical design, we have been working to find methods to visualise electricity and electricity consumption in everyday life to promote environmentally positive behavioural change. In this paper, we are looking at how aspects of lifestyles can be used in design as central driving forces that could lead to changed behaviour. Attempts to promote behavioural changes related to energy consumption might be successfully carried out when people are offered desirable alternatives that are engaging and that do not impose a perceived extra burden in their everyday life. This argument is exemplified through two design concepts, the AWARE Laundry Lamp and the Energy Plant, which are examples on how to increase people’s energy awareness and offer them means for reducing their energy consumption in the home. Both prototypes are inspired by current trends in lifestyle as well as actual observed user behaviour. Keywords: Interaction Design; Sustainable Design; Energy; Lifestyle; Persuasive Design</p

STATIC! The Aesthetics of Energy in Everyday Things

Abstract: Static! is a project investigating interaction and product design as a way of increasing our awareness of how energy is used in everyday life. Revisiting the design of everyday things with focus on issues related to energy use, we have developed a palette of design examples in the form of prototypes, conceptual design proposals and use scenarios, to be used as a basis for communication and discussion with users and designers. With respect to design research and practice, the aim has been to develop a more profound understanding of energy as material in design, including its expressive and aesthetic potential, thus locating issues related to energy use at the centre of the design process

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

CID, Centre for User Oriented IT Design

Semiotics in product design Report number: CID-17

Design, energi och hållbar utveckling

Qc 2012021

Making sense : design for well-being

The theme of this dissertation is the design of IT artefactsfor increased well-being in the home. The goal has been toprovide a better understanding of the coupling between designand health, and to give examples of how to design for increasedwell-being. The context for the investigation has been thehome, and various research initiatives in smart homes andIT-supported care. We create our reality in the form of material structuressuch as buildings, products, workplaces and homes. Theseartefacts are a reflection of ourselves, we have created themand we understand ourselves through them. Together withimmaterial artefacts like political systems, educationalsystems and healthcare, they constitute our society. Thetotality of these material and immaterial artefacts forms theconditions of our everyday life. This investigation points at anew way to look at artefacts as social actors in an interactiveworld. In this perspective, use becomes a dialogue andcooperation with the artefact. Design work becomes a carefulcreative practice in which the focus is the interplay betweenthe artefact and its social environment. Stress and ill-healthis an indication that there is an unbalance in the interplay.Well-being on the other hand means that there is a balancebetween the artificial world and the individual. Designpractitioners, and others that create our world, have animportant task in designing new artefacts that do not reproduceobsolete or dysfunctional behaviour. Inspired by coping theories, a salutogenic approach todesign aims at identifying and strengthening the aspects ofartefacts that help us handle adversities. This means to createartefacts that form a world, which is comprehensible,manageable and meaningful. People that live in environmentswhere they cannot influence decisions, with high demands andlow control, are likely to become ill. But people that haveenvironments, in which they receive feedback, support and cancontrol their own situation stay well. With new, complextechnology such as ubiquitous computing, it becomes even moreimportant to support recognition and routines. And it becomesessential in domestic use and in IT-support for the disabledand elderly. The empirical work reported here consists of four casestudies related to IT artefacts for well-being. The casestudies include field studies, critical analysis, designconcepts, prototype building and evaluation. Based on thefindings in these studies, four considerations for design ofinteractive systems for the home are suggested: design forunderstanding, for detecting and managing of errors, fordisabling and for alternative coping. Finally it is suggested that if research is to concernitself not only with evaluations and general laws, but alsowith ideas and practical examples of a better future life\u96then design knowledge becomes an essential element inresearch. In this endeavour we need more cooperation betweenpractitioners from the social and technical sciences, thehumanities and design.QC 2010061

Design, energi och hållbar utveckling

Qc 2012021