Continued from part 1 These are the suggested mechanisms applicable to User follows process or path, performing actions in a specified sequence – they fall roughly into three ‘approaches’. In this post, I’m going to examine the System element approach. System element approach This approach […]
All posts filed under “Environmental”
Lights reminding you to turn things off
Duncan Drennan, who writes the very thoughtful Art of Engineering blog, notes something extremely interesting: standby lights, if they’re annoying/visible enough, can actually motivate users to switch the device off properly: Our DVD player has (to me) the most irritating standby light that I have […]
Exploiting the desire for order
I met a lot of remarkable people in Finland, and some of them – they know who they are – have given me a lot to think about, in a good way, about lots of aspects of life, psychology and its relation to design. Thanks […]
Getting someone to do things in a particular order (Part 4)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 (coming soon) Continued from part 3 This series is looking at what design techniques/mechanisms are applicable to guiding a user to follow a process or path, performing actions in a specified […]
Getting someone to do things in a particular order (Part 3)
Continued from part 2 This series is looking at what design techniques/mechanisms are applicable to guiding a user to follow a process or path, performing actions in a specified sequence. The techniques fall roughly into three ‘approaches’. In this post, I’m going to examine the […]
The Rebound Effect nicely illustrated
The Rebound Effect is a significant problem in energy policy and sustainable design: if new devices are more energy efficient, will users simply use them more, or leave them on for longer? (A kind of Jevons’ Paradox). This UK Energy Research Centre report (PDF, 5 […]
User-Centred Design for Sustainable Behaviour
TU Delft’s Renee Wever and Jasper van Kuijk (who runs the insightful Uselog product usability blog), together with NTNU’s Casper Boks, have produced a very interesting paper, ‘User-Centred Design for Sustainable Behaviour’ [PDF, 400 kb] for the International Journal of Sustainable Engineering (indeed, probably in […]
The world’s energy meter
One of the presentations I’m really looking forward to at OpenTech 2008 in London is by AMEE, self-described as “The world’s energy meter”: If all the energy data in the world were accessible, what would you build? The Climate Change agenda has created an imperative […]
A ‘Behaviour Change Barometer’
This is a kind of exploration of some ideas I worked on a while ago as part of my research, and have only just come back to, in order to tidy them up a bit. I’m putting it online as a way – perhaps – […]
‘Design | Behaviour: Making it Happen’ Seminar, 17th October
Debra Lilley, who runs the very useful Design-Behaviour website, sends details of an interesting forthcoming seminar at Loughborough University: Design | Behaviour: Making it Happen! The 13th Sustainable Design Network Seminar Design | Behaviour: Making it Happen! will be held on the 17th October 2008 […]
So long, and thanks for all the rubbish
It cost nothing to put this (trilingual) thank-you message on this litter bin at Helsinki Airport. But does this kind of message – a very simple injunctive norm – have more effect on user behaviour than the absence of a message? To what extent does […]
Hard to handle
British Rail’s drop-the-window- then-stick-your-hand-outside- to-use-the-handle doors puzzled over by Don Norman in The Design of Everyday Things are still very much around, though often refurbished and repainted as with this delightful/vile pink First Great Western-liveried example. I’m assuming that this design was intended to introduce […]