Tobias showing us energy efficiency projects which he found interesting
We have begun our first “Industry Project” for which we have the privilege of collaborating with Jay Melican, a Design Researcher at Intel’s Digital Home Group. The topic of this two week project is Social Computing for Sustainability and we will be exploring “the roles of the individual and the collective in achieving sustainable behaviors change and effective residential energy/resource management.” I should mention that only half our class is working on the Intel project while the other half is working with DSB - the Danish train company. Not coincidentally, their brief is also about sustainability (read Eilidh’s blog for details about that project).
What I did find coincidental though was that the project I just finished (Meet the Food You Eat) also had to do with sustainability. However I have come across some blog articles tonight that are making me realize what a perfect challenge sustainability is for Interaction Designers.
To paraphrase a blog article that paraphrased Robert Fabricant’s keynote speech at the Interaction Design Association’s recent conference in Vancouver:
Our medium = behavior
Sustainability = a problem of behavior
Sustainability = our problem
It’s an interesting equation and something to think about. A great example of this comes from the design consulting firm Cooper. They have done a service concept called Economizer which is very close to the sort of projects we are talking about right now. But besides being about sustainability, the following videos are also excellent examples of communication, prototyping and interaction design.
One Comment
its really great to read this when we are now in different sides on the building! It’s strange reading about you guys working on a project that we are not!very interesting though, can’t wait to find out more!
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