sustenable

	year(s):	2008
	role:	Primary Researcher and Designer
	project duration:	4 months
	skills:	field experiment, brainstorming sessions, interviews, participatory design
	final stage:	developed an always-on electricty feedback concept
	deliverables:	paper and interactive prototoype, conference paper

I believe sustainability is at the forefront of our societal concerns, and I feel the need to take action to improve my own behavior when it comes to sustainability, but also to help other do the same. Yet very little information is available for people to inform the decision of changing current behaviors for better ones. To start addressing this issue, I have investigated how we could design an always-on electricty consumption feedback display for the Home.

Building upon a review of the literature and driven by a user study with household members, I have underlined three stages of relevance when designing eco-feedback: Raise Awareness, Inform Changes, and Maintain Sustainable Changes. Additionally, in collaboration with Ronald Metoyer and Jonathan Dodge, I investigated user-experience aspects in the design and integration of always-on feedback systems in the Home. This study in particular highlighted the need to build a consensus among household members, and the role of aesthetics, privacy and location in such systems.

Finally, I developed a spatial based feedback concept which steps away from the typical historical view of consumption to display information in a way people relate to: in terms of where activities occur. In doing so, I attempt to leverage household members' inherent knowledge of what is happening in the home, where and when, hence reducing the amount of information necessary, and some privacy issues.


Early concept with participants about spatial-based electricty feedback in the home.


Investigating location of feedback.


Early prototype of spatial-based feedback of electricity consumption.

Studying Always-On Electricity Feedback in the Home

Yann Riche, Jonathan Dodge, Ronald A. Metoyer, to appear at CHI2010 (the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems).