Models of the user: designers' perspectives on influencing sustainable behaviour

Influencing more environmentally friendly and sustainable behaviour is a current focus of many projects, ranging from government social marketing campaigns, education and tax structures to designers' work on interactive products, services and environments. There is a wide variety of techniques and methods used, intended to work via different sets of cognitive and environmental principles. These approaches make different assumptions about 'what people are like': how users will respond to behavioural interventions, and why, and in the process reveal some of the assumptions that designers and other stakeholders, such as clients commissioning a project, make about human nature. This paper discusses three simple models of user behaviour - the pinball, the shortcut and the thoughtful - which emerge from user experience designers' statements about users while focused on designing for behaviour change. The models are characterised using systems terminology and the application of each model to design for sustainable behaviour is examined via a series of examples.

[1]  Edward Elias,et al.  Designing for ‘use phase’ energy losses of domestic products , 2009 .

[2]  James A. Landay,et al.  The design of eco-feedback technology , 2010, CHI.

[3]  Sean Duffy,et al.  It Matters a Hole Lot , 2009 .

[4]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[5]  S. Hyysalo.  Representations of Use and Practice-Bound Imaginaries in Automating the Safety of the Elderly , 2006 .

[6]  Dave Gray,et al.  Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers , 2010 .

[7]  M. Dekay,et al.  Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[8]  T. Bhamra,et al.  Towards instinctive sustainable product use , 2005 .

[9]  C. Boks,et al.  How design of products affects user behaviour and vice versa: the environmental implications , 2005, 2005 4th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing.

[10]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  Design for behaviour change: The design with intent toolkit v.0.9 , 2009 .

[11]  Jenifer Tidwell.  Designing Interfaces , 2005 .

[12]  Casper Boks,et al.  User‐centred design for sustainable behaviour , 2008 .

[13]  S. Woolgar.  Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials , 1990 .

[14]  Xavier Sarrate Donaire.  Don't make me think: a common sense approach to web usability.2nd ed. , 2009 .

[15]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches , 1981 .

[16]  Casper Boks,et al.  When to apply different design for sustainable behaviour strategies , 2010 .

[17]  Lenneke Kuijer,et al.  A Culture-Inspired Approach to Gaining Insights for Designing Sustainable Practices , 2009 .

[18]  Hugh Dubberly,et al.  What is interaction ? Are there different types ? , 2014 .

[19]  Neville A Stanton,et al.  The Design with Intent Method: a design tool for influencing user behaviour. , 2010, Applied ergonomics.

[20]  R. Sonderegger.  MOVERS AND STAYERS: THE RESIDENT'S CONTRIBUTION TO VARIATION ACROSS HOUSES IN ENERGY CONSUMPTION FOR SPACE HEATING , 1978 .

[21]  Raymond Scupin.  The KJ Method: A Technique for Analyzing Data Derived from Japanese Ethnology , 1997 .

[22]  Alan Cooper,et al.  The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) , 1999 .

[23]  Denise A. Guerin,et al.  Occupant Predictors of Household Energy Behavior and Consumption Change as Found in Energy Studies Since 1975 , 2000 .

[24]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  Concept generation for persuasive design , 2010 .

[25]  Max Jacobson,et al.  A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction , 1981 .

[26]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  Making the user more efficient: design for sustainable behaviour , 2008 .

[27]  Shigeo Shingo,et al.  Zero Quality Control: Source Inspection and the Poka-Yoke System , 1986 .

[28]  S. Frederick.  Heuristics and Biases: Automated Choice Heuristics , 2002 .

[29]  William Samuelson,et al.  Status quo bias in decision making , 1988 .

[30]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  The Sciences of the Artificial , 1970 .

[31]  新郷 重夫,et al.  Zero quality control : source inspection and the poka-yoke system , 1986 .

[32]  Donald A. Norman,et al.  Designing for error , 1987 .

[33]  H. Dowlatabadi,et al.  Models of Decision Making and Residential Energy Use , 2007, Renewable Energy.

[34]  Dean Eckles,et al.  Selecting Effective Means to Any End: Futures and Ethics of Persuasion Profiling , 2010, PERSUASIVE.

[35]  S. S. van Dam,et al.  Home energy monitors: impact over the medium-term , 2010 .

[36]  M. Newborough,et al.  Dynamic energy-consumption indicators for domestic appliances: environment, behaviour and design , 2003 .

[37]  Nicola Combe,et al.  Assessing the number of users who are excluded by domestic heating controls , 2011 .

[38]  Johan Redström,et al.  Towards user design? On the shift from object to user as the subject of design , 2006 .

[39]  Debra Lilley,et al.  Design for sustainable behaviour: strategies and perceptions , 2009 .

[40]  Noah J. Goldstein,et al.  The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms , 2007, Psychological science.

[41]  Ann Thorpe,et al.  Design's Role in Sustainable Consumption , 2010, Design Issues.

[42]  G. T. Gardner,et al.  Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emissions , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[43]  K. Boulding.  General Systems Theory---The Skeleton of Science , 1956 .

[44]  Casper Boks,et al.  The ethics in balancing control and freedom when engineering solutions for sustainable behaviour , 2008 .

[45]  Alan Cooper,et al.  The Inmates are Running the Asylum , 1999, Software-Ergonomie.

[46]  Willett Kempton,et al.  Folk quantification of energy , 1982 .

[47]  H. Allcott,et al.  Social Norms and Energy Conservation , 2011 .

[48]  Hiroaki Kimura,et al.  Using individual, social and economic persuasion techniques to reduce CO2 emissions in a family setting , 2009, Persuasive '09.

[49]  Hugh Dubberly,et al.  ON MODELINGWhat is interaction?: are there different types? , 2009, INTR.

[50]  Contents , 2013, Physiology & Behavior.

[51]  Steve Krug,et al.  Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability , 2000 .

[52]  H. Simon,et al.  Rational choice and the structure of the environment. , 1956, Psychological review.

[53]  Eli Blevis,et al.  Sustainable interaction design: invention & disposal, renewal & reuse , 2007, CHI.

[54]  Alastair Fuad‐Luke.  Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World , 2009 .

[55]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  Design with Intent: 101 patterns for influencing behaviour through design , 2010 .

[56]  Murray Silverstein,et al.  A Pattern Language , 1977 .

[57]  Lt Lorna McCalley,et al.  Energy conservation through product-integrated feedback: The roles of goal-setting and social orientation , 2002 .