The Power of Design: Product Innovation in Sustainable Energy Technologies

4.3 Stimulating Energy Behavior Change in Current Design Practice

In the design discipline, there is growing interest to stimulate sustainable behavior through product and service design (e.g., Ehrenfeld, 2008; Kuijer and De Jong, 2009; Manzini, 2008). The design discipline operates at the intersection between technology and human behavior. The challenge for designers is thus to come up with products and services that enable sustainable lifestyles. A quick glance at design handbooks reveals that traditional design approaches consider individual users. This is also reflected in design strategies aimed at facilitating sustainable behavior in both product and interaction design.

4.3.1 Design Strategies to Stimulate Behavior

Strategies can be applied on a wide range of products, from making use of physical affordances (e.g., not allowing people to sleep on a public bench) to creating awareness (Lilley, 2009; Lockton, Harrison, and Stanton, 2010; Wever, Van Kuijk, and Boks, 2008). While these strategies provide handles on how to stimulate or constrain certain behaviors through product design, the design is always aimed at the behavior of individual users rather than groups of users.

4.3.2 Interaction Design

Many of the usability issues of common home energy management systems were recently highlighted by van Dam et al. (2012). One of the most important issues for the design of such a system is whether the user feels in control over the product, or feels the product is in control. The ...