Adaptive Path Blog

Allison Woodruff of Intel Research presented the findings of an extensive contextual research study of people throughout the US who had made significant changes to their home in order to support a green lifestyle. She noticed most research to date focused on activism so the goal of her study was to understand the daily practices of individuals committed to green living in order to understand how HCI could help promote positive personal behavior. Her presentation contained compelling video clips of participants from the study who relayed the “why” of their daily practices in relationship to their home and their desire to be more green.

Some of her findings were:

Living in a green home is like living on a ship
People in this study developed an immediate and physical relationship with their home. The green friendly homes were like a ships — participants needed to remain aware, make constant minor adjustments in order to maximize efficiency. While at times burdensome, participants in Allison’s study also spoke a kind of fulfillment this consciousness provided.

Continuous Computation
Participants in the study enjoyed the modest mental challenges that result from their lifestyle choice. They felt that green was about being mindful — and engaged. This engagement wasn’t viewed as a burden, but a pleasurable puzzle that engaged their mind.

The Path
Allison spoke of how the participants in her study acknowledged the commitment required to being green — that it was not a single act but a lifelong relationship to change. Their relationship to the lifestyle had grown from an ardent hobby to an organizing principle for their life.

Individualism as a driver
Allison pointed out that the participants expressed a strong drive for uniqueness and a desire to differentiate themselves from the rest of society. These folks were proud and viewed themselves as independent thinkers.

Implications for the HCI community
- Provide people with tools for personal action.
- Provide focus. It’s easy for people to get overwhelmed with all the choices and often recommendations about how to be more green are confusing and/or conflicting. Provide people with the tools to focus on one or two things and provide depth — breadth will grow from a feeling of success.(depth vs. breadth learning)
- Engage people mentally. People like the modest mental challenges that come with the mindfulness of being green.
- Provide people with the tools to debate and decide for themselves. Support the complex decision-making process by helping people understand trade-offs.
- Change the circumstances. Directly target large-scale corporations and government.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 8:19 am and is filed under Conference commentary, Experience design, Sustainability, Uncategorized, user research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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