Design for sustainable behaviour: a case study of using human-power as an everyday energy source
- Submitting institution
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Nottingham Trent University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 19 - 698445
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
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10.1504/JDR.2016.079763
- Title of journal
- Journal of Design Research
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 280
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 3
- ISSN
- 1748-3050
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
- November
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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D - Product Innovation Centre
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This paper is based on research that explored strategies to induce sustainable behaviour, specifically the use of human-power to drive everyday energy-using products. Introducing this alternative way for addressing excessive energy consumption, through a product-in-use case-study it applies the strategy to a design-led intervention and evaluation explaining how participants cope with the use of a new artefact and how different motivations affect their behaviour.
This research explored human motivations through focusing on the use-phase of an intervention and enhances knowledge in the field of design for sustainable behaviour. In the absence of an existing framework for assessing the effectiveness of such interventions, this study followed a deductive process, using social-psychological theory to evaluate the strategy, which reduced the risk of subjective interpretations. The results describe the process of regulating various forms of controlled motivations that are induced by design-led intervention and identify the challenges in internalising new behaviour. The results were obtained using a prototype developed through three 'home user studies’. The requirements for the design process were discerned through a review of literature and by identifying behavioural problems from two initial case studies. The participants for final case study were recruited through online survey filtering.
The research described led to two further journal articles, in Sustainability, (https://doi.org/10.3390/su11174610) and the Journal of Cleaner Production, (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.09.081) as well as an article in The Conversation and press coverage in The Independent. It has also generated a PhD project, defended in 2020.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -