IT BACHELOR PROJECTS AARHUS UNIVERSITY JANUARY 2010

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1 A TANGIBLE ENHANCEMENT OF MOVIE EXPERIENCES CAN TANGIBLE COMPUTING ENHANCE THE EXPERIENCE OF GOLF MOTIVATING TEENS TO UNDERSTAND AND GENERATE ELECTRICITY MONITORING DOGS ACTIVITIES FOR TANGIBLE REPRESENTATION OP-BLOCKS: A TANGIBLE APPROACH TO SURGERY SCHEDULING IT BACHELOR PROJECTS AARHUS UNIVERSITY JANUARY 2010 A CRITICAL DESIGN APPROACH: COMBINING PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGY AND TANGIBLE USER INTERFACE TO CREATE ENERGY AWARENESS

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3 IT BACHELOR PROJECTS JANUARY 2010 Can Tangible Computing Enhance the Experience of Golf, side Motivating teens to understand and generate electricity, side Monitoring Dogs Activities for Tangible Representation, side OP-Blocks: A Tangible Approach to Surgery Scheduling, side A Critical Design Approach: Combining Persuasive Technology and Tangible User Interface to Create Energy Awareness, side A Tangible Enhancement of Movie Experiences, side

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19 Motivating teens to understand and generate electricity Tobias Sonne Jensen A new application for tangible interaction Jakob Dam Jensen Department of Computer Science Aarhus University Aabogade 34, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark Morten Boye Mortensen 1. ABSTRACT In this paper we explore how to motivate teens to understand electricity and through that, replace their usage of electricity from legacy power-plugs with electricity generated by themselves. We do so by applying Fogg s Behavioral Model on current solutions to investigate why they are not affecting teens and also to argue why our solution might make a difference. The use of tangible interaction usually relates to Tangible User Interface(TUI)-systems in the field of computer science, however we propose a new application for this kind of interaction. Combining tangibility with consumption connects action to usage and reintroduces some of the physical qualities lacking in modern electrical devices. To explore how tangible interaction can benefit in the context of energy awareness a concept was designed and a prototype was built and tested. A qualitative test indicated that the target audience approves of the concept, but that the physical design needs further work. 1.1 Resume I denne artikel vil vi undersøge, hvordan man kan motivere teenagere til at forstå elektricitet og derigennem erstatte brugen af elektricitet fra lysnettet med elektricitet produceret af dem selv. Vi anvender Fogg s Behavioral Model på nuværende løsninger for at undersøge, hvorfor de ikke påvirker de unges energivaner samt til at argumentere for hvorfor vores løsning kan gøre en forskel. Brugen af tangible interaction relaterer normalt til Tangible User Interface(TUI)-systemer inden for datalogien, men vi foreslår en ny anvendelse for denne form for interaktion. Kombinationen af fysisk håndgribelighed og forbrug forbinder handling med konsekvens og genindfører nogle af de fysiske kvaliteter der mangler i moderne elektriske apparater. For at undersøge hvordan tangible interaction kan bidrage til energibevidsthed, blev et koncept designet og en prototype blev bygget og testet. En kvalitativ test viste at målgruppen blåstempler konceptet, men at den fysiske udformning har behov for yderligere arbejde. 2. INTRODUCTION Environmental protection has received a lot of attention in the past couple of years. People are being told how their consumption habits affect global warming and how we all share the responsibility for protecting the planet. Yet it is still difficult for the average consumer to understand how their usage of electronic equipment has a negative impact on the world. This is due to the fact that electricity, because of its abstract nature, can seem like an inexhaustible energy source. The common approach to solve this problem within computer science related fields has been to show usage-statistics in different ways on displays [4, 1]. Another approach is of the more artistic kind where designers and computer scientists collaborate on a more artistic impression of energy usage [25, 3]. Tangible interaction with entities without a physical form is by definition not possible. However in computer science the concept of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) has originated, where it has contributed to physical interaction with digital material [6]. As a consequence most TUI systems concentrate on enhancing the traditional on-screen computer interface with different kinds of physical representations or possibilities for manipulation. One obvious way of using tangible interaction in combination with energy awareness, would be to add tangibility to screen based awareness systems. However in this paper the approach is different. Instead of basing the work on digital properties and possibilities, the starting point is the physical qualities in a product. The most electricity consuming part of an average western population is the teens [21]. They have a lot of electrical equipment, they often use multiple devices simultaneously and they don t pay the bill themselves[21]. It is of interest JANUARY

20 if tangible interaction can help to increase awareness in this particular demographic. Therefore the question that will be the foundation for the subject in this paper is: How can tangible interaction help teens between years understand electricity and motivate them to create energy for their own consumption? 3. MOTIVATION Over the last couple of years, the environment has gained an increasing amount of attention. In an effort to decrease pollution and global warming, a lot of measures have been taken and more are sure to come. One of the areas of focus lies within a change in the behavior of the population on the globe. Such a change requires enlightenment and education of people, in particular of the generations to come. This is the main reason that the topic in this paper will be focussed on teens between years. They are the generation of the future and if their behavior can be affected, the foundation for a greater future change stands stronger. The average teenager uses approximately 20 % more energy than the remaining part of the population [21]. Furthermore, they are not economically responsible for their own consumption [21] and therefore they don t face any practical or economic consequences of their behavior. The teens primary type of energy consumption is electricity [21]. Computers, mobile phones, game consoles, televisionset etc. all use substantial amounts of electricity. To top it all of, multiple devices are often turned on at the same time, adding to the overall consumption. The modern youth s way of life with always-on devices and constant accessibility to friends and acquaintances through digital services, leads to an increased consumption of electricity by the devices required. This consumption may not be noticed in everyday life. When a teenager has to charge a mobile phone, the charger is just plugged in and the phone gets charged. There is no need to think about how things work or who made it work in the first place. Likewise it takes no effort to do; it is a great example of convenience. Another example of convenience is the use of automatic light sensors, that automatically turn the light on and off in a room triggered by human activity. On the homepage for The U.S. Department of Energy, the department encourages the use of light sensors: Use dimmers, motion sensors, or occupancy sensors to automatically turn on or off lighting as needed and prevent energy waste [35]. By using automatic light sensors, a normal household can save 20% - 40% on their energy bill [36], but because of this automatization, the awareness of electricity decreases. The objective in this paper is not to make designs that are not convenient, on the contrary the purpose is to create an awareness and appreciation of electricity, while at the same time maintaining the conveniences. The use of tangibility poses a challenge in combination with the abstract and intangible nature of electricity. Where most traditional TUI systems build on existing concepts of files, widgets and icons etc.[6, 29], the nature of electricity offers no obvious elements, parts or features that can easily be reproduced in a tangible way. Perhaps that is the reason that much existing research in energy awareness, focuses on monitoring energy consumption[1] and relies on different kinds of screen-based solutions. The physical and tactile features of the containers and devices, that only used to generate, store, transport and consume electricity can now also be used to support a tangible interaction approach in this field. This is what will be explored in this paper. 4. RELATED WORK In the following we will start by presenting some of the research done in the area of how to visualize electricity and consumption of electricity as well as how our concept differs from the already existing ones. Afterwards we will present a commercial product that relates to the charging situation of our concept. 4.1 Related research One of the main problems of understanding energy consumption is, that consumers have a hard time grasping their consumption in real time [2]. The notion of electricity is abstract for most people, which naturally makes it difficult to understand how much is being used (and thus how to reduce usage), and exactly how big an impact it has on the environment, according to Chetty et al. [2]. The monthly bill from the electricity company gives a status of consumption over a period of time, but to understand and minimize consumption the consumers need to learn when and where they are consuming, and with that knowledge, where to take action. Also the way of indicating consumption per se can be hard to connect to usage. Because although consumers might know what a unit of electricity (1 KWh) costs, very few know how many KWh are being spent when watching television, listening to radio or just by keeping the lights on [1, 2]. Most of the research done so far has focussed on the households visualizing power consumption in different ways, some are screen based like Eco-Eye [26] and The Building Dashboard Displays [27] whereas others try to express consumption in a more physical way, like Vision energy sculpture [24] or The Nuage Vert project [25]. (a) Eco Eye (b) Building dashboard Figure 1: Screen based solutions Eco-Eye and similar products all share the same approach. They are targeting an entire household where every resident of the house shares the concern of minimizing power. But sometimes a family consists of both parents and children and whereas parents have an economical advantage when energy consumption is lowered, the children do not share 20 AARHUS UNIVERSITY

21 this view of the world. Studies have shown that teens are in fact the largest consumers of electricity [21] which is a result of them not suffering any economic burden and therefore tending to be careless about how much electricity they in fact use. For teens screen-based solutions like Eco-Eye [26] would not make much difference and similar solutions will not have any impact on them because of their focus on an entire household. A more physical solution like the Power Aware Cord [19] could work for a teenager because it could be placed in their rooms and thereby take advantage of ambient awareness resulting in the teenager always being aware of increases in power consumption. The Swedish design research project Static! [?] has developed a couple of products focusing on making energy visible i.e. the Power Aware Chord. Static! uses a critical design approach, which is described by Dunne in [7]. Our intent is not so much to be as provocative as the critical design approach, we instead focus on convenience to achieve our goal. (a) Nuage Vert Project (b) Vision Energy Sculpture Figure 2: Physical solutions Vision energy sculpture [24] & Nuage Vert project [25] show data in a completely different way. The Nuage Vert project (Figure 2(a)) traces the smoke coming out of a power plant in Helsinki and depending on how much electricity the local neighborhood is consuming the the smoke will be more or less green. The Vision Energy sculpture (Figure 2(b)) is an artistic barometer for resource efficiency [24] and like the Nuage Vert project the connection to energy consumption is somehow weak, meaning that it does not make sense that a higher consumption of energy should be shown by moving sculptures. Compared to our research question, which states that we want teens to understand and create electricity, previous examples only support the part of making teens understand electricity. We wish to make a strong connection between using energy and visualizing energy usage and research confirms the importance of this connection. [12] suggest a more clear connection between actions and consequences. They argue that bringing back a clear indication of the consequence of using power as a limited resource will automatically make people think about the usage. 4.2 Related commercial products Some products already on the market combine a connection between power generation and action like the Wind Up Battery [5] and the Hand pressing flash light [8]. Wind Up Battery (Figure 3(b)) gives the user the ability to charge a battery by hand with a built-in crank. An indicator light on the battery light will let the user know when the battery is fully charged. Similarly the hand pressing flash light (Figure 3(a)) generates power by pressing the handle in order to turn on the light in the flash light device. (a) Hand pressing flash light (b) Wind up battery Figure 3: Physical solutions These two examples clearly connect actions with energy creations but none of them visualize electricity so even though the target audience can get a clear understanding of the effect of physical labour leading to energy creation the products do not make the energy itself tangible. This is where we aim to differ. We want to combine these two approaches into one concept which will produce a tangible relation to electricity as well as reconnecting actions and consequences. 4.3 Foggs behavioral model The main challenge is to motivate this behavioral change. To do so we need some way of understanding human behavior, which can be obtained using Fogg s behavioral model [9]. Fogg argues that three factors play a role when trying to change peoples behavior. The person must (1) be sufficiently motivated, (2) have the ability to perform the behavior, and (3) be triggered to perform the behavior. The Fogg behavioral model is useful in analysis and design of persuasive technologies which is why it is used in our research. 5. CONCEPT In the following we will present our concept by the use of two scenarios. Afterwards we will more thoroughly explain and discuss the motivation behind our concept. 5.1 Scenarios Julie is 12 years old and she has just finished eating breakfast so now it s time for school. She runs to the basement where her bike is parked and attaches the TangibleBattery on the down tube of the bike-frame. After putting on her helmet she starts biking the usual route to school which is approximately three kilometers. During the whole trip Julie can see how the TangibleBattery is growing in size due to the fact that she is charging it while biking. When Julie arrives to school she moves the TangibleBattery from her bike to the side of her backpack. Walking across the schoolyard Julies hears someone yelling: Hey Julie, wait for me. It s Mette, Julie s best friend, who just arrived to school on her bike. When Mette catches up Julie notices that Mette s TangibleBattery, which is hanging from a key hanger around her neck, is larger that Julies. This is due to the fact that Mette has a longer route from home to school than Julie. In a break later that day Julie receives an SMS from her older brother Brian, who asks her to call him right after school. While reading the text message Julie notices that her mobile phone is low on battery. When class starts again she JANUARY

22 therefore plugs her TangibleBattery into the mobile phone and squeezes the battery until enough power has been transferred to the mobile phone. Julie is now certain that she will have enough power on her mobile phone to make the call to her brother. 5.2 Scenario 2 Allan is 15 years old and like most of his classmates he is very aware of how he expresses himself in the physical as well as the virtual world. Allan has just stepped out of his bed, and turned on his PC and now he is checking to see if there are some funny or important mails in his inbox. He sees, that he has received an mail from Facebook with the subject Your rank in the TangibleBattery competition has changed. Allan knows what this means: that some of his friends have passed him in generating energy. He follows the link to Facebook and can then see that he is now down to third place among his friends, and seventeenth place among the other kids at his school. Allan decides to quickly eat his breakfast and bike a longer route to school today, so he can improve his position in the competition. 5.3 Description of concept Our concept consists of: a battery (TangibleBattery) and an online game/competition. The TangibleBattery is designed to charge other battery driven devices (such as mobile phones or ipods) and the user charges the TangibleBattery by biking. On the bike a charger is installed, which makes the power generated by biking travel into Tangible- Battery. The TangibleBattery will grow in size when it is being charged, giving a physical representation of how much electricity is being stored in it. When the user wants to move electricity from the battery into another device the user must press the electricity out of the battery. The TangibleBattery will keep track of how much has been generated and this information can be sent to an online highscore giving the user the ability to compete with his friends. 5.4 Motivation of the concept Teenagers are not changing electricity consumption habits which from the Fogg s Behavioral Model point of view could be explained by the lack of one or more of the following three independent factors: they are not motivated, they are not being triggered or they lack the ability to decrease their energy consumption [9]. It can t be the lack of ability which is causing the missing behavioral change since all it require of the teens is switching off devices when not used or simply cutting down on the use of devices which requires electricity. So the answer lies in either lack of motivation or lack of triggers. As stated earlier most of the teens do not share the same economic concerns as their parents regarding wasting energy which is why we have to find alternative motivating factors. We wish to make a strong connection between using energy and visualizing energy usage and research confirms the importance of this connection. [12] suggests a more clear connection between actions and consequences. They argue that bringing back a clear indication of the consequence of using power as a limited resource will automatically make people think about the usage TangibleBattery The TangibleBattery is meant to replace the power plugs everywhere in terms of charging battery driven devices like mobile phones or music players. The owner can charge the battery with his bike when driving somewhere and at some point electricity stored within the battery can be moved to another device or a friends battery. The TangibleBattery is capable of showing approximately how much energy is stored within it by its physical size. This means that when TangibleBattery is being charged on the bike it will grow in size and when the user wants to move energy from TangibleBattery into for instance a mobile phone the user will physically press energy out of the battery. Doing so we ensure a close connection between the actions and the consequences which will help the user understand what the energy is and where it came from [12]. The fact that the battery changes its physical shape gives it the ability to be a statement for the owner. When the owner has a large battery hanging from his backpack it shows that he has been physically active and that he does participate actively in reducing energy consumption from legacy sources (like power plugs). In this way the battery could entail the same fashion statement that mobile phones do [34]. This can be categorized as both a trigger and a motivational factor Social aspects What we want to do with our concept is to engage a lot of teens at once by taking advantage of their network of friends, both in the real world and in the virtual world of social sites like Facebook and MySpace. Social sites like Facebook and alike have become very important for young people today [14] and because of that we think it s important to incorporate this part of youth life into the concept in order for them to adopt it into their everyday lives. Our concept does exactly this by inviting Facebook users into a game to determine who can generate the most electricity to charge their mobile devices (research has shown that competition can make people decrease their energy usage[2]). To be a part of this competition the users need a special battery (Tangible- Battery) in which they store green energy, meaning energy which they themselves generate. This is an important part of our concept: if the teens charge the battery with the plugs in the wall they will not get any points, instead they need to generate the power for the TangibleBattery themselves by for example biking (with an appropriate installation on their bike to transfer electricity generated to the battery). The Facebook integration incorporates two features: a highscore and posting to the user s wall. The highscore gives an overview of how much energy the user has generated compared to all of his friends. In terms of the Fogg Behavioral Model these are both motivational and triggering factors. The social aspect of showing how good you are doing by positing on your Facebook wall will motivate teens to make an effort and seeing this post could trigger a teenager to bike and charge next time he is going to school. Also if a teenager notices a friend who is gaining on him on the highscore could spark the motivation to charge even more energy into his TangibleBattery [2]. 22 AARHUS UNIVERSITY

23 6. DESIGN PROCESS The design process through this project has been extremely influenced by the fact that the goal was to give tangibility to something that by nature is intangible. Although we have a successful history of working and designing together as a team, this project posed the greatest challenge for the team until now. Traditional tools and methods for designing, ie. brainstorming, prototyping and making scenarios seemed insufficient in order to advance the process properly. Therefore other methods and techniques were tried out. 6.1 Sketching, Bodystorming and Video Scenarios Sketching, as defined by Buxton [13], is an important tool in the process of developing and refining ideas and concepts. Sketching an idea facilitates communication of the idea to others and it is a concrete and palpable representation of one s idea, which gives a level of understanding supporting the flow in the further process. In the early stages of the brainstorm and design process, we tried sitting around a table sketching ideas on paper and explaining them to each other. But although this method had been a very useful technique in previous projects it quickly proved inefficient, mainly due to the heavy focus on tangible interaction in the concepts (and perhaps because of our lack of sketching skills). It was simply too time consuming compared to how much we were able to convey of the interaction within the drawings. We therefore took an alternative approach to dealing with the tangible interactions and started using our own bodies to play out short scenarios for each other. This is known as bodystorming[10] as opposed to brainstorming. Bodystorming has the same purpose as brainstorming - generating ideas, but rather than relying solely on ones brain, the entire body is brought into play acting out ideas and concepts, giving a new level of experience both for the one acting as well as for those watching. The sketching, explaining and sharing of ideas fuse together and creates a space in which ideas can be discussed and inspire new ideas[10]. The outcome of this was that we could very quickly try out ideas and keep these for future reference. Afterwards we would write down the idea with a few rough illustrations to support the text. So instead of first sketching an idea and afterwards trying to explain it to the rest of the group, we first acted out and explained the idea and then we made sketches of the idea. This caused the idea generating process to speed up and at the same time we got a better feeling of the idea when trying it out in real life. After doing some bodystorming, the most promising ideas were selected and video prototypes based on these ideas were recorded. We found that the video scenarios were a powerful tool in reflecting on and refining the concept as well as a means to communicating our concept to others. The video prototypes helped explore practical and social aspects of the different stages and contexts in which the concept operates. Generating, expressing and consuming electricity would have been very difficult to explore properly in relation to tangible interaction without the opportunity to act out, record and review the interactions with the product. 6.2 Exploring Ethics and Aesthetics Inspired by Exploring Ethics and Aesthetics in Interactive Product Design [11] we tried to incorporate different ethical systems in our design in hope of being inspired to see our design in a different perspective and thereby refine our concept. We made three small videos of what our concept could be like if our view was either kantian rationalistic, nietzschian or romanticistic [11]. We found it inspiring to envision and acting out how the situation we are designing for, would end up if we had a completely different perspective. However, we ended up not changing much about the concept, but one interesting thing we found was, that our ideas were mostly kantian rationalistic with regards to the idea that our users had to make power themselves, in order to be able to use power. Also when playing through the nietzschian ethics, we found that maybe this is the approach teens have to electricity and energy consumption today. They are not directly affected by their use of electricity because their parents pay the bill to the energy company and the power keeps flowing out of the socket in the wall. 6.3 Designing the prototype After generating ideas, documenting them, exploring ethics and deciding on a concept, a concrete physical prototype of the concept was to be designed. In the following the design process of the physical part of the prototype will be described and argued for. Storing of energy is traditionally done with batteries of different kinds. Modern battery technology has improved on battery capacity, charging times, lifetime etc. but the batteries are essentially the same. Most conventional consumer batteries give no indication of their current level of charge and to know how much power is left on the battery, one usually has to rely on the device in which the battery is installed or different kinds of measuring instruments. However in this context how much power is generated and stored in the battery is important to express, in relation to the motivation factor described by Fogg [9]. The social expression has an important role in the use and adaptation of a concept like this, in the same manner as mobile phones as stated in [34]. This creates a need for the battery to display information about the contained power in an apparent manner. Therefore the target of the prototype was to illustrate how a battery, can change its physical appearance and through that, signal its current level of charge. The prototype should explore the possibilities of controlling the shape of an object in order to illustrate the tangible qualities of the concept and not store actual electrical energy. In the following we will describe the main iterations of the prototype design and implementation Pneumatically controlled One selfevident way to let a container show whether it is full, empty or somewhere in between, is to appear bulkier or slimmer than normal. Therefore the first iteration of the JANUARY