Doing it

doing it

There is no one way to design for sustainable behaviour and no hard and fast rules as to which strategies to use. The aim of this section is not to provide a exhaustive list of strategies for you to apply. Equally, this section does not advocate the use of one strategy in isolation. In fact, combining two or more strategies in the design of a product or system may be beneficial in increasing its effectiveness[1,2]. Instead, this section provides:
- an overview of strategies for designing sustainable behaviour sourced from cross disciplinary research.
- links to case studies showing how other practitioners have applied these strategies in practise

"the loughborough model"

The Loughborough Model, combines the research of Lilley [1, 2] with that of Tang [3, 4]. According to Lilley, Design for sustainable behaviour strategies can be categorised on an ‘axis of influence’[1, 2] which correlates increased product control with a corresponding reduction in user interaction and choice. Lilley [1] also proposes a set of factors which could potential increase the effectiveness of behaviour changing products, services or systems. The work of Tang [3,4] expands the framework of Lilley’s axis of influence [2]; integrating the user/technology agency structure with behaviour theory and extending the strategies from the three originally identified by Lilley [1, 2] to the seven strategies explained here [3, 4].

eco-information		design oriented education: Makes resources visible, understandable and accessible to inspire consumers to reflect upon their use of resources. Two types: 1 - Visualizing: expressing the presence and consumption of resources (e.g. energy/water); 2 - Experiencing: design for interacting with resource use.

eco-choice		design oriented empowerment: Encourages consumers to think about their behaviour and take responsibility for their actions by providing consumers with options. Users have a choice and the product enables sustainable use to take place.

eco-feedback		design oriented links to environmentally or socially responsible action: Informs users of the environmental or social impacts of their actions in real-time to raise awareness and encourage behaviour change. Provides tangible aural, visual, or tactile signs as reminders to inform the situation.

eco-spur		design oriented rewarding incentive and penalty: Inspires users to explore more sustainable usage through providing “prompts” for good behaviour or penalties to “punish” unsustainable use. Shows the consequences of consumers actions through “rewarding incentives” and “penalties”.

eco-steer		design oriented affordances and constraints: Facilitates adoption of more environmentally or socially desirable use habits through prescriptions and/or constraints embedded in the product design.

eco-technical intervention		design oriented technical intervention: Restrains use habits, persuades or controls user behaviour automatically through design combined with advanced technology.

clever design		decreasing environmental impacts without changing user behaviour: Enables consumers to automatically act environmentally or socially without raising awareness or changing user behaviour purely through innovative product design. Results in more sustainable consumption without needing a conscious change in consumer behaviour.

Designers’ ability to influence user behaviour and the resulting tension between choice and control raises some interesting ethical issues. Interventions which steer user behaviour towards more sustainable behaviour without restricting interaction may be more widely accepted than those which exert greater control. Coercive, automated or ubiquitous technologies, however, could arguably be more effective than informative ones in ensuring change, but is it better to educate the consumer and risk failure or overrule users and “force” behavioural changes in order to achieve demonstrable results?

To learn more about designing ethically and to access tools to assist in the design process visit the <ethics of design for sustainable behaviour > webpage.

References:
[1] Lilley. D (2007) Designing for Behavioural Change: Reducing the Social Impacts of Product Use through Design, PhD Thesis, Department of Design and Technology, Loughborough University, UK
[2] Lilley. D (2009) Design for sustainable behaviour: strategies and perceptions, Design Studies, Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 704-720
[3] Tang, T. and Bhamra, T.A. (2008) Changing Energy Consumption Behaviour through Sustainable Product Design, in: International Design Conference - Design 2008, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 19th-22nd May, 2008.
[4] Tang, T., (2010) Towards Sustainable Use: Designing Behaviour Intervention to Reduce Household Environmental Impact, PhD thesis, Department of Design and Technology, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

This content was updated: 14-07-11