One Size Does Not Fit All: Extending the Transtheoretical Model to Energy FeedbackTechnology Design

He, Helen Ai (2010)
One Size Does Not Fit All: Extending the Transtheoretical Model to Energy FeedbackTechnology Design. Master's thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, April.

View Publication and Related Materials

PDF PaperPDF Paper (2010-He.MScThesis.pdf)

Abstract

Global warming and climate change are urgent global issues. One remedy is to motivate sustainable energy consumption behaviours by people. One approach is the use of technologies that provide real-time, energy usage feedback. However, current technologies use a "one-size-fits-all" solution, providing the same feedback to differently motivated individuals at different stages of behavioural change. I make four contributions. First, I frame motivational psychology literature as key notions for designers of technology that motivates sustainable energy behaviour. Second, I show how this motivational perspective can be used to assess existing feedback technologies. Third, I construct a motivational framework based on the Transtheoretical Model, where I offer strategies that target individual motivations at each stage of change. FOurth, I present two design scenarios as initial approaches to illustrate the applicatin of the framework to inform energy feedback technology design. The first are textual examples illustrating one way to appoly each of the framework's recommendations. The second revisits our implemented feedback system by providing initial, high-level, redesign ideas based on the framework's recommendations for each stage of change. Both scenarios are meant to be initial probes into what future directions of research could be, rather than concrete recommendations for design.

Bibtex entry

@MASTERSTHESIS { 2010-He.MScThesis,
CLASS = { THESIS },
AUTHOR = { He, Helen Ai },
TITLE = { One Size Does Not Fit All: Extending the Transtheoretical Model to Energy FeedbackTechnology Design },
SCHOOL = { Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary },
ADDRESS = { Calgary, Alberta, Canada },
YEAR = { 2010 },
MONTH = { April },
}