Allison Woodruff
ABSTRACT
We present a qualitative study of 35 United States households whose occupants have made significant accommodations to their homes and behaviors in order to be more environmentally responsible. Our goal is to inform the design of future sustainable technologies through an exploration of existing "green" lifestyles. We describe the motivations, practices, and experiences of the participants. The participants had diverse motivations ranging from caring for the Earth to frugal minimalism, and most participants also evidenced a desire to be unique. Most participants actively and consciously managed their homes and their daily practices to optimize their environmental responsibility. Their efforts to be environmentally responsible typically required significant dedication of time, attention, and other resources. As this level of commitment and desire to be unique may not generalize readily to the broader population, we discuss the importance of interactive technologies that influence surrounding infrastructure and circumstances in order to facilitate environmental responsibility.
- Bång, M., et al. The PowerHouse: A Persuasive Computer Game Designed to Raise Awareness of Domestic Energy Consumption. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3962:123--32, 2006. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Bayet, F. Overturning the Doctrine: Indigenous People and Wilderness - Being Aboriginal in the Environmental Movement. Social Alternatives 13(2):27--32.Google Scholar
- Berger, J., and Heath, C. Where Consumers Diverge from Others: Identity-Signaling and Product Domains. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(2):121--134, 2007.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Berglund, E. Know Nature, Knowing Science: An Ethnography of Local Environmental Activism. White Horse Press, Conway, NH, 1998.Google Scholar
- Beyer, H., and Holtzblatt, K. Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. Morgan Kaufman, San Francisco, 1998. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Blevis, E. Sustainable Interaction Design: Invention & Disposal, Renewal and Reuse. Proc. CHI 2007, 503--12. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Borning, A., et al. Informing Public Deliberation: Value Sensitive Design of Indicators for a Large-Scale Urban Simulation. Proc. ECSCW 2005, 449--468. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bright Green Environmentalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_green_environmentalismGoogle Scholar
- Brulle, R.J. Agency, Democracy, and Nature: The U.S. Environmental Movement from a Critical Theory Perspective. MIT Press, Cambridge and London, 2000.Google Scholar
- Corburn, J. Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice. MIT Press, Boston, 2005.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Darrah, C.N., Freeman, J.M., and English-Lueck, J.A. Busier Than Ever! Why American Families Can't Slow Down. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2007.Google Scholar
- Edwards, W.K., and Grinter, R.E. At Home with Ubiquitous Computing: Seven Challenges. Proc. UbiComp 2001, 256--272. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fogg, B.J. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Boston, 2003. Google ScholarCross Ref
- Folger, T. Blueprint for Disaster? OnEarth, Summer 2005, 12--13.Google Scholar
- Friedman, B., Kahn, P., and Borning, A. Value Sensitive Design and Information Systems. In P. Zhang & D. Galletta (eds.), Human-Computer Interaction and Management Information Systems: Foundations (pp. 348--372). M.E. Sharpe, New York, 2006.Google Scholar
- Goodwin, J., and Jasper, J.M. (eds). The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts. Blackwell, New York, 2002.Google Scholar
- Gustafsson, A. and Gyllenswärd, M. The Power-Aware Cord: Energy Awareness through Ambient Information Display. CHI 2005 Extended Abstracts, 1423--1426. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Harper, R. (ed). Inside the Smart Home. Springer, London, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hasbrouck, J., Igoe, T., Mankoff, J., and Woodruff, A. Ubiquitous Sustainability: Technologies for Green Values. Proc. UbiComp 2007 Workshops, 567--568.Google Scholar
- Hasbrouck, J. and Woodruff, A. Green Homeowners as Lead Adopters: Technological Design Inspired by Sustainable Living Strategies. Intel Technology Journal 12(1), 2008.Google Scholar
- Heisley, D.H., and Levy, S. J. Autodriving: A Photoelicitation Technique. Journal of Consumer Research 18(3):257--272, 1991.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hooker, B., et al. The Pollution e-Sign. Proc. UbiComp 2007 Workshops, 575--578.Google Scholar
- Jain, R. and Wullert, J. Challenges: Environmental Design for Pervasive Computing Systems. Proc. MobiCom 2002, 263--270. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Johnston, T. Australia is Seeking Nationwide Shift to Energy-Saving Light Bulbs. NYT, February 21, 2007.Google Scholar
- Kaplan, S. Aesthetics, Affect, and Cognition: Environmental Preference from an Evolutionary Perspective. Env. and Behavior 19(3): 3--32, 1987.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Kempton, W., et al. Environmental Values in American Culture. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995.Google Scholar
- Litosseliti, L. and Sunderland, J. Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis. John Benjamin's Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 2002.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Luke, T. Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy and Culture. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1997.Google Scholar
- Maffesoli, M. (ed). In the Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualization in Mass Society. Sage, London, 1996.Google Scholar
- Mainwaring, S.D., Chang, M.F., and Anderson, K. Infrastructures and Their Discontents: Implications for Ubicomp. Proc. UbiComp 2004, 418--432.Google Scholar
- Mankoff, J., et al. Environmental Sustainability and Interaction. CHI 2007 SIG, in CHI 2007 Extended Abstracts, 2121--2124. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mankoff, J., et al. Leveraging Social Networks to Motivate Individuals to Reduce their Ecological Footprints. Proc. HICSS 2007, pp. 87a. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Marcus, C.C. House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home. Conari Press, Berkeley, CA, 1995.Google Scholar
- Maslach, C., Stapp, J., and Santee, R. Individuation: Conceptual Analysis and Assessment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49(3):729--738, 1985.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Millbrath, L. Environmentalists: Vanguard for a New Society. State University NY Press, Albany, NY, 1984.Google Scholar
- Monbiot, G., and Matthew, P. Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. Doubleday, Canada, 2006.Google Scholar
- Paulos, E., et al. RE: REempower and REcycle. Proc. UbiComp 2007 Workshops, 601--605.Google Scholar
- Population and Energy Consumption. http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/pop/energy/Google Scholar
- Rose, G. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. Sage Publications, London, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ryff, C. and Keyes, C. The Structure of Psychological Well-Being Revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(4):719--727, 1995.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Snyder, C., and Fromkin, H. Abnormality as a Positive Characteristic: The Development and Validation of a Scale Measuring Need for Uniqueness. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 86(5):518--527, 1977.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Stringer, M., et al. Kuckuck - Exploring Ways of Sensing and Displaying Energy Use in the Home. Proc. UbiComp 2007 Workshops, 606--609.Google Scholar
- Wash, R., et al. Design Decisions in the RideNow Project. Proc. SIGGROUP 2005, 132--135. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Williams, A. Infrastructure and Sustainable UbiComp. Proc. UbiComp 2007 Workshops, 610--611.Google Scholar
- Zeisel, J. Inquiry by Design. Norton, New York, 2006.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- A bright green perspective on sustainable choices
Recommendations
Sustainable interaction design: invention & disposal, renewal & reuse
CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThis paper presents the perspective that sustainability can and should be a central focus of interaction design-a perspective that is termed Sustainable Interaction Design (SID). As a starting point for a perspective of sustainability, design is defined ...
Beyond being green: simple living families and ICT
CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsMotivated by a need in sustainable HCI for studies of everyday practices, and a belief that a holistic view on sustainability is crucial to deeper understanding of how to design ICT to support sustainability, we here present a qualitative study of 11 ...
Sustainable millennials: attitudes towards sustainability and the material effects of interactive technologies
CHI '08: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThis paper describes the design and interprets the results of a survey of 435 undergraduate students concerning the attitudes of this mainly millennial population towards sustainability apropos of the material effects of information technologies. This ...
Comments