Design process report: full

Is this a CSCW, NordiCHI, DIS paper if it gets rejected from CHI?

Title

Abstract

Introduction 1p

Why are we considering raising energy awareness?

• Explain in terms of C-Aware project

  • Awareness -> intelligibility -> beneficial behaviour change

(Paper) prototyping as a mechanism for exposing opportunities for interventions in the workplace.

Goals of method

• Differences in way energy is managed/understood across different sites

  • Chose three sites with very different culture (internal and external)

• Gaps in communication within organisations re. energy management

• Mismatches in understanding of energy management

Expectations/past work 0.5p

Clarify: not rigourous comparison (only 3 sites), chosen to explore interesting differences.

Papers

Method 1p

Groundings for future scenario workshop approach.

Workshop process vs. others

• Bringing people together (see below)

• Quick/intense -> creative

What we did

• Participant selection

  • Attempt to capture representatives from all key energy stakeholders

    • How?

    • Why?

      • Bringing together people within the organisation that wouldn't normally interact AND we expect that issues may involve misunderstandings within the workplaces

    • Flag up issue with Estates at Nottingham (to refer to later)?

• What have we changed/extended?

  • Paper/remote exercise

    • Maximising value by sense-testing elements of workshop in advance (risk minimisation)

      • Do paper-based, creative exercises work in Chinese context/Computer Science dept.

      • Get rough idea of responses to workshop questions in advance

    • Priming participants (get them thinking about their energy use in the workplace)

    • Sustainability! (build relationship/get results from participants without traveling to meet them)

Same workshop on each site (based on responses to remote exercises)

• Longer in Beijing - ensure understanding of method (particularly motivation)

• Analysis/evaluation

  • 2-pass group analysis

    • Participants

      • Additional expertise - Nils (architecture), Xu (Chinese + product design), Joel (appropriateness of intervention)

    • Detail

    • Themes

Findings 3p

The workplaces (and how they work)

Understanding these is a key output (identify observations vs. opinion)

• Incentives (external? top-down; Implemented)/motivations (internal; bottom-up)

China Mobile

Financial boundary: charged more if previously agreed peak is breached Previously regulated working environment (in terms of energy use)

• Booking system as example of regulations (to enforce accountability over resources)

Cambridge

?

Nottingham

?

Discussions 1p

Control/Agency

China Mobile creating regulated environment (using booking system, etc.) in order to be able to predict demand and bid for allocation of building's peak. Concern about quality of awareness that booking system provides (staff overbook - booking system doesn't necessarily control staff behaviour ...), leading to overbidding for share of peak. Concern over Big Cloud as it is an unfamiliar, assumed unpredictable, major energy consumer. China Moblie responsible for it, but cannot necessarily control it (partly used internally - can be controlled - partly used by external partners - cannot control/have to honour commitment). CM are scared of situations where unpredictability/lack of control leads to breaching their allocation.

Camb? Horizon?

Awareness/feedback/information

?

Responsibility

?

What's missing?

Legibility (woohoo) -> collective motivation? 1.5p

Where is this missing in each case? What intervention goes in to address it?

China Mobile

Lack of legibility in behaviour of key energy consumers - expert energy system - forecasting/reflecting on behaviour to bring these resources in-line with the regulated workplace environment, to then allow confidence in bidding for share of building peak.

Cambridge

Gap between understanding of Ian BP (but inability to control at low level) and understanding of staff (who have control at low level). System to bridge gap.

Nottingham

Lack of incentive at level of Horizon is interesting (no unified/collective motivation). Why do individual groups get flat rate charge (regardless of their behaviour)? Possibly because Estates don't have information to be able to do otherwise (introduce incentives). Check back with them.

Lack of collective motivation re. energy -> differences in personal motivation (particularly re. waste).

Staff did express definite need for any incentive regarding energy to be based on accurate information (need to trust incentives that involve accountability). Also that an understanding of context is necessary (it's my job; my job might be different to yours).

Evaluation 0.5p

Issue with engaging Estates at Nottingham

• Why?

  • Established beliefs about how to reduce energy costs

• What ground-work needs to be put in in advance of a similar process in future?

• Method produced outputs that are now being used to engage Estates (provide proof of value of method)

Efficiency as a workplace value (measure of performance?) vs. energy saving

Why the workplace? How has all this shown that workplaces need to be considered differently?

What makes a collective motivation?

• Very difficult to base this on morals

Conclusion 0.5p

Refs 0.5p

Old notes

• C-Aware o Data, story through the data. Initial thoughts: • Whether energy is treated as a contentious resource within an organisation affects how people react to energy technologies. • Difference between people in China and in the UK – values, requirements – in China people were more interested in how people and groups worked together – UK people just boring. • Interface specific: Chinese wanted more playful interfaces, in the UK more interested in accuracy, accountability. • Differences in energy perception: in the UK people more at loss in that they didn’t know how their behaviour affected energy consumption, and how they could change it. In China there’s a limit, but they don’t understand when and how they hit the limit, lack of information in the organisation. • Orientation to management • Environmental and sustainability concern vs. an economic concern • Who pays the bills? o TODO: schedule data sessions in early July, 2-3 dates – Done o TODO: pre-circulate data • Google docs, photos, video, audio • In dropbox → Horizon Energy → Design activities o TODO: Follow-up interviews o Should this paper contest the notion that the motivations and power to change are within individuals? o So what? • Is top-down pressure needed (to provide incentives)? • Is there something that makes the issue more tractable in the workplace? • In Cambridge: People don’t understand the building → exposing management issues and building functionality • For China mobile, two things: • Management need to understand resources • Staff understanding their role in the energy system • Postulate 2-3 different interfaces/interventions • Devices, e.g. mobile etc. • personal vs. communal, • Playful vs. non-playful • Examples to get in front of people? • Educational interventions, e.g. “environmental champions”, or other initiatives • How do our suggestions fit into existing practices? • Design beyond the locality of consumption • What helps people understand? • Persuasive approaches • Incentives (carrot) vs. punishment (stick)? o Mismatches between managers and employees assumption demonstrated through quotes. o Conclusions: • Framework, strategy, set of prototypes o Approach: maybe a critical paper on behavioural psychology/change vs. social and organisational influences o How people relate to energy is more complex than just individual motivation, there needs to be a framework to address this