About the project

The project will proceed in three phases. In phase one we will be primarily interested in the design of instruments and products for teenage energy use change. In phase two, taking a user-centred, design approach, we will build, evaluate and redesign these instruments and products. In phase three we will evaluate the impact of our products and create deliverables for the energy community (industry and research) that will include data on energy use, tested prototype designs, further designs for future technologies, and evaluated methods for measuring change.

Phase one will begin with a ‘competition’ that will be launched through the web and through our target schools. This will have a minimum of 200 young people aged 12 – 17 telling stories about their energy usage, using narrative, images and video. They will create a social community of shared experiences (which will produce rich qualitative data). Whilst this is ongoing, experts in pedagogy and interaction design will create first-pass ‘expert’ designs for the products, aimed at informing and educating teenagers of their energy use. In parallel, design sessions with teenagers aged 12 – 19 will be conducted in schools to provide a teenage ‘view’ of design requirements. Different ages will be expected to need different products and so we expect different design solutions for junior teens (13-15) and senior teams (16-19) though this split and its border will be part of our investigation. During phase one, researchers will also investigate appropriate methods and tools for evaluating attitudes, behaviour changes and appropriation of the technologies being proposed and the technical specifications for the products will be confirmed.

In Phase two, the technical team will build two mobile products (provisional title MAD – ‘Make A Difference’) aimed at teenagers aged 13–15 (MAD1) and at teenagers aged 16–19 (MAD2). Each of these products will be evaluated with both teenagers and experts and will then be redesigned / refined.  Whilst these two products are being used, the research team will investigate the impact on energy use of the initial and longer term use of the products. Longitudinal studies are as necessary as short-term ones, since we need not only to change immediate behaviours but to see that changes stick. During the use of MAD1 and MAD2 a considerable set of data pertaining to the energy use of the teenagers using the products will be gathered and the design teams will spend time, during this phase, to specify and build a web-portal for this data, and for the summarized data from the teenagers stories, for use by energy professionals and academics. As highlighted in Figure 1, the two products MAD1 and MAD2 will each interface with three sub-parts that will allow teenagers to have automated input from sensor technologies via mobile networks, will allow additional data to be input manually from either static sensors or from other data capture methods (for example miles walked), and will include educational material appropriate to the application being designed. The modular design of the two products will allow for functionality to be removed or reduced in some parts; for instance, if there is no wireless signal, the product will not lose all functionality.

Phase three will begin with a summer school (August 2012) to which a selection of teenagers (circa 40) will be invited. At this summer school these teenagers will be instructed in the interpretation of data, in the conducting of interviews and in ethnographic methods. From the summer school the teenagers will go back to their peer groups and their families and will gather rich data on energy use and attitudes whilst also working alongside the academics to interpret the data that has been, and at that stage will still be being, gathered from the continued use of MAD1, MAD2 and the teenage story website. A dissemination workshop in May 2013 for industry and academics will be planned that will specifically focus on technology designs that change the energy habits of teenagers. The two built and evaluated products, MADer1 (‘Making a Difference – evaluated and refined’) and MADer2 will be showcased but other designs that have been generated during the build and deployment of these products will also be presented. The database of information from the teenagers’ stories, the energy sensors and the two technology products will also be launched at this event. In the closing months of this phase the research team will bring all their findings together and will prepare for exploitation of the results.