How much does one’s behavioral response to real-time data feedback depend on the actual content of the data, and how much on simply having access to the data at all?
A common hypothesis in human-computer interaction is that providing users with information feedback on their environment will significantly change their behavior. This presents an attractive opportunity for sustainability advocates; by presenting information on the environmental impact of a user’s actions, they could potentially steer users to sustainable actions like conserving energy or recycling. Past research has demonstrated significant behavioral change given varying degrees of system response: daily feedback (Bittle, 1979) and real-time dynamic feedback (Dobson, 1992). In both cases, users reduced their energy use in response to the feedback on their actions. Now, with environmental sensing and ubiquitous computing expanding rapidly in use, researchers can collect and push real-time data to users, in hopes that with increased awareness comes more sustainable behavior.
However, we still do not know how much of this behavioral change is responding to what the data is telling us, and how much is responding to the mere presence of real-time data. For instance, the realization that one’s environment is being “sensed,” and that the impact of one’s actions can be measured and even monitored, might be enough to significantly change one’s behavior, before even seeing the data itself. This would imply several conclusions:
· Actually providing data in real-time (often a tricky or expensive process) is less important than convincing users that the data is real-time.
· Data visualization providers might still be able to achieve the behavioral change they want, despite the fact that they cannot control what the real-time data says.
Sustainable behavior is more affected by the presence of real-time data than by the differing scenarios that data could present.
Sustainable behavior, as measured by revolving door use instead of swinging door use.
Presence of real-time data on an adjacent computer screen, the content of that data.
At building entryways with both revolving and swinging doors, we will present pedestrians with three different scenarios.
1. A digital display showing internal and external temperatures, and how much energy could be saved by using the revolving doors over the swinging doors (Real-time feedback scenario)
2. A digital display showing placeholders for temperatures and energy conserved, but not showing actual values yet, implying work-in-progress (Potential feedback scenario)
3. No digital display (Control)
In each of these scenarios, we will count how many people have used either doorway to enter/exit the building over a period of time, taking the ratio of revolving door users as a measure of sustainable behavior. The difference between the control scenario and the other two scenarios will demonstrate the impact of having real-time feedback as well as the impact of implying real-time feedback. The incremental differences in the ratio in response to different conditions in scenario 1 (the potential energy saved will fluctuate over time) will represent how much the actual content of the data impacts decisions. This content may be intentionally manipulated to present clear differences to users (either their choice saves very little energy or their choice saves a lot of energy) to test this contrast.
Bittle, R.G., R. Valesano, and G. Thaler. 1979. The effects of daily cost feedback on residential electricity consumption. Behavior Modification 3: 187--202.
Dobson, J.K., and J.D.A. Griffin. 1992. Conservation effect of immediate electricity cost feedback on residential consumption behavior. Proceedings of the ACEEE 1992 Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 10: 33--35.