Debra Lilley

Sustainable design education - considering design for behavioural change

Abstract This paper reports on the development and evaluation of ‘design-behaviour’ (www.design-behaviour.co.uk), a web-based resource created to support the teaching of Design for Behavioural Change — a new field of enquiry in sustainable design research. The paper presents a brief introduction to sustainable design teaching in the Department of Design and Technology at Loughborough University. It goes on to outline the project methodology used to develop a web-based resource to centralise and disseminate teaching material on the subject of Design for Behavioural Change for a design and engineering audience. Selected findings from a literature review are introduced and the results of a pilot study (through which the authors explored how this subject could be taught to industrial/product design students) are discussed. The paper explains how the resource was developed and presents the results of an evaluative user questionnaire. It concludes with an outline of improvements made in response to feedback received and a discussion of further developments planned.

The considerations and limitations of feedback as a strategy for behaviour change

Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB) is a maturing research area concerned with the application of design strategies to influence consumer behaviour during a products use phase towards more sustainable action. However, current DfSB research has focussed on strategy selection with little research into understanding the real-world impact of the behaviour changing interventions debated. This article presents the results of an extensive literature review of one specific DfSB strategy, feedback – a user agentive performance indicator. These findings exemplify the considerations and limitations of this particular approach to behaviour change, drawing on empirical research conducted by a breadth of authors, including two of the only medium-term case studies in the field of DfSB. Considerations discussed include the frequency, duration and accuracy of feedback; the selection of metrics and the presentation medium and mode; the use of ambience and the location of the installation. Limitations of feedback include the need for additional information and comparisons; the issue with multiple users; technical issues; relegation to background technology and the potential rebound effects. This article provides insights to both improve the effectiveness of future feedback design efforts and also to help facilitate discussion on feedbacks position as a strategy within DfSB.

Improving the installation of renewable heating technology in UK social housing properties through user centred design.

Social housing organisations are increasingly installing renewable energy technologies, particularly for the provision of heating and hot water. To meet carbon reduction targets, uptake and installation must allow occupants to use the technology effectively. This paper describes research which investigated the service of installing heat pumps into UK social housing properties, from both landlords’ and tenants’ experiences. Adopting a user centred design approach, the research was in three phases: an exploration study to investigate landlords’ and tenants’ experiences of heat pump installation and use; refinement and development of the requirements for improved service delivery, primarily technology introduction and control; and the development and initial evaluation of an information leaflet as a key touchpoint in the service delivery. Recommendations for improved service delivery, to enable heat pumps to be accepted and used more effectively, are presented, as well as reflection on the process of applying user centred design in this context. In a relatively immature area of industry, installations to date have been heavily focused on technical aspects. This paper provides an insight into the human aspects of the service delivery of heat pumps in social housing, providing designers and social housing landlords with insight about how to improve the service.

IJSE special issue: Design for Sustainable Behaviour

Designers shape the development of products, services and systems that directly impact upon society and the environment. It is now widely accepted that the application of sustainable design can greatly reduce the environmental and social impacts of these products, services and systems. However, many impacts occur during use and often users struggle to make the link between their own individual behaviour and the environmental and social impact that can result. Until recently designers often ignored the use phase within their designing due to its complexity and uncertainty. In recent years, however, Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB) has emerged as an important area of research and practice that aims to reduce the environmental and social impacts of products, services and systems by moderating users’ interactions with them. This special issue has brought together an extremely wide range of articles that represent the breadth of current thinking around designing for sustainable behaviour. It aims to give an overview of the key areas of research that have developed in recent years and enable the reader to build understanding of the field. In the first paper Daae and Boks set the scene by focusing on three Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) case studies where the use phase was responsible for the largest share of the overall environmental impact. The three case studies look at three distinct products where the environmental impact in use is caused by different factors and the range of assumptions that were made in the case studies. The authors demonstrate that DfSB examples can make a significant contribution towards more accurate LCA data through providing a more detailed understanding of how people actually use products. In order to help designers begin to apply DfSB, Strömberg, Selvefors and Renström propose five pathways of sustainable behaviour that describe the different ways that people can engage with artefacts that lowers environmental impact. These pathways are then demonstrated through a generic DfSB design process clearly illustrating how a designer could use them. The paper helps to develop a clear terminology for both researchers and designers working within DfSB and should help to inspire more people to work in this way. Many DfSB researchers have been working within the domain of energy use within the home and we are lucky enough to have two papers with this focus in this special issue. Kobus, Mugge and Schoormans present the results of a longitudinal study of two energy management systems based on current design and technology. Their findings illustrate many limitations to the effectiveness of these types of systems in reducing energy consumption. One of their key conclusions is that a more user-centred approach is required during their design in order to overcome the limitations and take on-board household dynamics. Wilson, Bhamra and Lilley examine feedback as a strategy for DfSB. As with the previous authors, their work focuses on the home and in particular reducing energy consumption. This paper highlights the particular limitations of adopting this strategy that provides designers with a clear focus. However, it also presents useful insights into how effective feedback can be used within design and help to reduce energy use. One area that to date has been little researched relates to the effect of cultural differences when considering DfSB. Spencer, Lilley and Porter look at this in detail in their paper that presents the results of in-depth studies with householders in Brazil, India and the UK. Their work highlights significant differences in laundry behaviours across these three contexts, leading to implications for designers creating products to be sold worldwide. The next two papers move away from behaviour to discuss the wider context of practices. Petterson introduces the concept of practice-oriented design for sustainability by outlining the detail of social practice theory and its implications for design as distinct from focusing on behaviours. This paper discusses key principles in the light of social practice theory and outlines the potential characteristics of this type of design compared to other design approaches and the benefits it can bring. Kuijer and Bakker also look at practice theory and compare it with the behaviour change approach within sustainable design. In this paper they argue that the underlying assumptions of DfSB may not be the best way of approaching the complexity of sustainable consumption and instead suggest that practice theory should be seen as an alternative approach that could aid designers to make this shift. Overall they argue that larger scale changes could be made if designers applied practice theory. In the final paper of this special issue, Boon,Wever and Quist argue that as society and designers we should be looking to move away from sustainable development

The future of design for sustainable behaviour, revisited

At the 2009 Ecodesign conference, the results of a survey on the future of design for sustainable behaviour (DfSB) were presented. In this paper, the survey is revisited, and responses from both surveys are compared and discussed. The contribution of theoretical fields, research priorities, integration in business, and the location and position of DfSB are discussed. The current discourse on behaviour- versus practice-oriented research is addressed, and the paper concludes with thoughts on how DfSB may further mature as a research area.

What Is ‘Value’ and How Can We Capture It from the Product Value Chain?

The mobile phone industry is based upon the rapid development of handsets and the high turnover of devices in order to drive sales. Phones are often used for shorter periods of time than their designed life, and when discarded it is often through channels that result in lost resource. This unsustainable business model places strain on resources and creates adverse environmental and social impacts. Through interrogation of a stock and flow model, a product-service system (PSS) for a small consumer electronic device, a mobile telephone, is proposed. The points at which value may be extracted from the PSS are identified. A quantitative measure of value is proposed in order to allow the evaluation of the most appropriate time to extract it. This value is not solely monetary, but is derived from the combination of indicators which encompass environmental, economic, and technological factors. A worked example is presented, in which it is found that the precious metals within the phone are the main determinants for value extraction. These metals are found in the printed circuit board, leading to a requirement to design phones for ease of extraction of these components in order to access the value within.

Understanding material change: Design for appropriate product lifetimes

From the moment of purchase, pristine objects are subjected to an array of stimuli including wear, impact, heat, light, water and air which alter their tactile and aesthetic properties. Material change is often regarded as ‘damage’ or ‘degradation’, but has potential to be used as a tool to engender emotional engagement to an object and extend product lifetimes. The potential benefits, and complications, associated with material change in the context of designing for the circular economy and other sustainable product service systems is discussed. We present a framework for designers to better understand how materials change with use, and in turn how people respond to materials as they change. Key challenges are identified which must be overcome to use this framework in design practice: people’s physical interaction with objects is poorly understood, it is difficult to simulate material change, materials resources for designers do not provide information about material change, and people’s responses to aged materials depend on a complex web of interacting factors.

The look of rough: Visual and tactile perceptions of cosmetically aged materials

The aesthetics of material performance within design is typically only considered up to the point of sale, a false end state in which the ‘newness’ of the product is protected by the hermetic packaging in which it is sold. Beyond this, the ‘ageing’ of a material is thought of only in terms of utility or easily measured technical parameters such as durability or toughness, and rarely reflects upon, or accounts for, the user’s experiential relationship with the material. Here, we explore changes in tactile and visual perceptions when sample materials have been artificially aged through the application of a taxonomy of damage observed from real world products. This paper argues that to expand our current knowledge in material culture and to assist in providing a more nuanced understanding of the user’s long-term relationship with materials, we, as designers, need to observe, record and reflect upon attitudinal reactions to aged and used materials.