Creating Persuasive Technologies for Sustainability – Identifying Barriers Limiting Target Behavior

At an early stage of designing persuasive technolog ies there is the challenge of selecting a target behavior and examin ing variables that prevent it. Within our research we are forming sustainability related persuasive technologies in the context of d omestic energy consumption. In this paper we present different typ es of barriers preventing people from the desired energy efficient behavior. In an explorative field study 48 participants received the task to selfmonitor their energy consumption behavior over one week. A qualitative analysis of daily statements revealed e ight underlying categories of behavioral barriers. The most common observed barriers relate to Lack of Attention followed by Co mfort. On the basis of these results, we formulated four guidelin es for sustainability related persuasive technologies.

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