Design of a Household Concept Motivating Sustainable Consumption Behavior

129 Pages·2011·13.05 MB·English

Design of a Household Concept
Motivating Sustainable
Consumption Behavior
Fredrik Jonsson, Lisa Bylund
March 15, 2011
Master’s Thesis in Computing Science, 30 credits
Supervisor at CS-UmU: Anders Broberg
Examiner: Jerry Eriksson
Ume˚a University
Department of Computing Science
SE-901 87 UME˚A
SWEDEN

Abstract
In common households today the awareness of the electricity, water and waste con-
sumption are rather low. This generates a behavior that conflicts with the existing goals
of sustainable living. Together with Stockholm City and other companies The Interactive
Institute is working with a project called Stockholm Royal Seaport, where the goal is to im-
plement a solution for how smart grids and visualizations in the household could motivate
a change of this behavior. This master thesis examines how to do this using an in-home
displayandambientinterfacesinanapartment. Inordertomotivatetheusersthegoalwas
to create a dynamic and exploring solution, that would not cause them to loose interest.
The result was an in-home display interface based on dynamic home screens, social com-
parison and achievements, and a couple of ambient interfaces located in the household. A
presentation video was made in order to visualize the coherent solution.
ii
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Thesis Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Method 5
2.1 Previous Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Current Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 Future Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4 Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5 Realization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3 Background 9
3.1 Stockholm Royal Seaport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.1 Stockholm Royal Seaport Urban Smart Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1.2 WP1 - Active House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Smart grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 Research Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3.1 Persuasive Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3.2 Ambient Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3.3 Sustainable Interaction Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3.4 Participatory and Pervasive Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.4 Psychological and Social Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4.1 Motivating User Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4.2 Arguments Motivating Small Electricity Production . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.5 Current Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4 Persuasive Technologies 25
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
iii
iv CONTENTS
4.2 Functional Triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.3 Behavior Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.3.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.3.2 Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.3.3 Triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.4 Persuasive Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.1 The PowerHouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.4.2 Show-me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.4.3 Playful Bottle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.5 Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5 Ambient Displays 33
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.2 Related work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.2.1 Calm technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.2.2 Everyday objects as displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.2.3 Persuasive displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.3 Application Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.3.1 Key Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.3.2 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6 From Theory to Practice 41
6.0.1 Conclusions from In-Depth Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
7 Current Situation 43
7.1 Industry Workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
7.2 User Studies in Hammarby Sj¨ostad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7.2.1 Cultural Probes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7.2.2 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.3 Interviews in O¨backa Strand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7.4 Conclusions From Data Gathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
8 Future Opportunities 51
8.1 Internal Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
8.1.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
8.1.2 Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
8.1.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8.2 Workshop with Participants in SRS:Active House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
8.2.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
8.2.2 Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
CONTENTS v
8.2.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8.3 Workshop with Uninformed Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8.3.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
8.3.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
8.3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
8.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
9 Visualization 71
9.1 System Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
9.2 In-Home Display Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
9.2.1 Interface Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
9.2.2 Electricity Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
9.2.3 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
9.2.4 Homescreens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9.3 Ambient Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9.3.1 Dirty Shower Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9.3.2 Wall Socket Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
9.3.3 Away Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
10 Realization 81
10.1 In-Home Display Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10.1.1 Homescreens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
10.1.2 Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
10.1.3 Rewards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
10.2 Video for Overall Concept Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
11 Discussion 89
12 Conclusions 91
12.1 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
12.2 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
13 Acknowledgements 95
References 97
A Interviews 103
A.1 Hammarby Sj¨ostad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
A.2 O¨backa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
B Graphs 105
B.1 Descriptive Graph of Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
B.2 Persona Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
vi CONTENTS
C In-Home Display Interface 109
C.1 Home screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
C.2 Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
C.3 Rewards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
List of Figures
3.1 DescriptivemodelofhowtheStockholmRoyalSeaportprojectrelatestothis
Master Thesis. It is not according to scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2 Visualization of the distribution of areas within the research project Active
House. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3 A graph illustrating how the user could benefit from some of the features of
the smart grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4 This is the start screen of echolog, showing the current consumption status. . 20
3.5 If the user goes deeper in the structure more detailed statistics are shown. . . 21
3.6 The total costs for each consumption or over all is shown one month at a time. 22
4.1 The Functional Triad with three of basic examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2 Screenshot showing the game environment of the computer game the Power-
House. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.3 LED lights arrangement for the Show-me concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.4 Asetofmugswithmobilephonesattachedtologdrinkingbehaviorstogether
with interface screenshots of the TreeGame (top) and ForestGame (bottom). 31
5.1 The dangling string indicating the network activity by rotating in the users’
periphery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.2 The Energy Plant developed by The Interactive Institute. . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.3 Different positions that Breakaway illustrates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.4 The Power Aware Cord developed by The Interactive Institute. . . . . . . . . 38
7.1 Descriptive graph of stakeholders involved in the SRS:Active House project,
their general demands and their demands on visualization. . . . . . . . . . . . 44
7.2 Persona graph where studied stereotypes are surrounded by and connected
to factors trigger an interest in consumption visualization. . . . . . . . . . . . 49
8.1 Diagram visualizing the evaluation of concepts from the internal workshop. . 55
8.2 Diagram visualizing the evaluation of concepts from the workshop with par-
ticipants in SRS: active House. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
vii
viii LIST OF FIGURES
8.3 Diagram visualizing the evaluation of concepts from the workshop with un-
informed participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
8.4 Diagram visualizing the concepts that was chosen as most appropriate for
this project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
9.1 Systemgraphvisualizinginterfacesinvolvedinthesolutionwithadescription
of the information exchange through one personal and one public gateway. . . 73
9.2 Wireframe based flowchart visualizing the basic structure for one In-home
Display interface concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
9.3 Three digital sketches visualizing the electricity mix in different phases. . . . 75
9.4 Pen and paper sketches on different levels when developing a concept Home-
screen concept named Your Life in Motion Pictures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9.5 Systemgraphvisualizinginterfacesinvolvedinthesolutionwithadescription
of the information exchange through one personal and one public gateway. . . 79
9.6 Systemgraphvisualizinginterfacesinvolvedinthesolutionwithadescription
of the information exchange through one personal and one public gateway. . . 79
10.1 This image illustrates the standard view of the device interface when no
homescreen have been selected yet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
10.2 A homescreen designed to awake monetary awareness by seeing their actual
apartment blueprint connected to current consumption costs. . . . . . . . . . 83
10.3 Personal information regarding (CO emission) originating from different ar-
2
eas of consumption within the home environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10.4 A homescreen designed to awake monetary awareness by seeing their actual
apartment blueprint connected to current consumption costs. . . . . . . . . . 84
10.5 History graph visualizing changes over time for the overall household impact. 84
10.6 Description of the challenges section visualizing ongoing and finished ones. . . 85
10.7 This Figure illustrates the achievement section containing a set of icons that
refer the specific achievements. Transparent icons have not yet been unlocked. 86
10.8 A collection of screenshots from each scene of the presentation video. . . . . . 87
11.1 A chart visualizing the workflow with activities and progress (concept quan-
tity and quality) during this Master Thesis project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89