Papers by Cecilia Katzeff
arXiv (Cornell University), Sep 19, 2023
Every day we face numerous lifestyle decisions, some dictated by habits and some more conscious, ... more Every day we face numerous lifestyle decisions, some dictated by habits and some more conscious, which may or may not promote sustainable living. Aided by digital technology, sustainable behaviors can diffuse within social groups and inclusive communities. This paper outlines a longitudinal experimental study of social influence in behavioral changes toward sustainability, in the context of smart residential homes. Participants are residing in the housing on campus referred to as KTH Live-In Lab, whose behaviors are observed w.r.t. key lifestyle choices, such as food, resources, mobility, consumption, and environmental citizenship. The focus is on the preparatory phase of the case study and the challenges and limitations encountered during its setup. In particular, this work proposes a definition of sustainability indicators for environmentally significant behaviors, and hypothesizes that, through digitalization of a household into a social network of interacting tenants, sustainable living can be promoted. Preliminary results confirm the feasibility of the proposed experimental methodology.
IFAC-PapersOnLine, Dec 31, 2022
Energy policy, Jun 1, 2024
Increasing our knowledge of how design affects behaviour in the workplace has a large potential f... more Increasing our knowledge of how design affects behaviour in the workplace has a large potential for reducing electricity consumption. This would be beneficial for the environment as well as for industry and society at large. In Western society energy use is hidden and for the great mass of consumers its consequences are poorly understood. In order to better understand how we can use design to increase awareness of electricity consumption in everyday life, we will discuss the design of Watt-Lite, a set of three oversized torches projecting real time energy statistics of a factory in the physical environments of its employees. The design of Watt-Lite is meant to explore ways of representing, understanding and interacting with electricity in industrial workspaces. We discuss three design inquiries and their implications for the design of Watt-Lite: the use of tangible statistics; exploratory interaction and transferred connotations.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006
... in their homes. The game employs a set of persuasive technology methods presented by Fogg [6]... more ... in their homes. The game employs a set of persuasive technology methods presented by Fogg [6] and others. We describe the ... tradeoffs between persuasion and gaming experience. 2 Persuasive Technology and Computer Games ...
Social Science Research Network, Jan 23, 2019
Food waste prevention has become an issue of international concern, with Sustainable Development ... more Food waste prevention has become an issue of international concern, with Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 aiming to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels by 2030. However there is no review that has considered the effectiveness of interventions aimed at preventing food waste in the consumption stages of the food system. This significant gap, if filled, could help support those working to reduce food waste in the developed world, providing knowledge of what interventions are specifically effective at preventing food waste. This paper fills this gap, identifying and summarizing food-waste prevention interventions at the consumption/consumer stage of the supply chain via a rapid review of global academic literature from 2006 to 2017. We identify 17 applied interventions that claim to have achieved food waste reductions. Of these, 13 quantified food waste reductions. Interventions that changed the size or type of plates were shown to be effective (up to 57% food waste reduction) in hospitality environments. Changing nutritional guidelines in schools were reported to reduce vegetable waste by up to 28%, indicating that healthy diets can be part of food waste reduction strategies. Information campaigns were also shown to be effective with up to 28% food waste reduction in a small sample size intervention. Cooking classes, fridge cameras, food sharing apps, advertising and information sharing were all reported as being effective but with little or no robust evidence provided. This is worrying as all these methods are now being proposed as approaches to reduce food waste and, except for a few studies, there is no reproducible quantified evidence to assure credibility or success. To strengthen current results, a greater number of longitudinal and larger sample size intervention studies are required. To inform future intervention studies, this paper proposes a standardised guideline, which consists of: (1) intervention design; (2) monitoring and measurement; (3) moderation and mediation; (4) reporting; (5) systemic effects. Given the importance of food-waste reduction, the findings of this review highlight a significant evidence gap, meaning that it is difficult to make evidence-based decisions to prevent or reduce consumption-stage food waste in a cost-effective manner. one third of food never reaches a human stomach (FAO, 2011), and global food waste is associated with large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions (FAO, 2013). Growing political and public consensus around the urgency of these challenges has provided the impetus for governments, regions, cities, businesses, organisations, and citizens to act.
Social practice theory and design as frameworks in understanding the emergence of sustainable foo... more Social practice theory and design as frameworks in understanding the emergence of sustainable food shopping practices
Journal of Cleaner Production
Behaviour & Information Technology, Mar 1, 2012
The article presents a case study of a user-centred design process of an energy service to be use... more The article presents a case study of a user-centred design process of an energy service to be used by households. This case study is used to explore the nature of participation of users in the design process. The purpose of the design was to create a prototype for an IT-based service to facilitate for households to learn about their electricity consumption and implicitly to reduce it. By applying methods from human-computer interaction (HCI) throughout the design process, we designed the digital prototype EnergyCoach. The final prototype of EnergyCoach is structured to visualise electricity consumption in households and to coach members of the household in learning about, and reducing their own consumption. The service is mediated through a combination of a web-based platform and one for the mobile phone. EnergyCoach was tested and evaluated in its intended context. Qualitative interviews were carried out with six households who tested the service for six months in their home environment. Results reveal that although the design of EnergyCoach was appreciated and the service as such considered useful, informants varied in how frequently they used it. Reasons to this are discussed and related to methods for early and later phases of the design process.
Naturvårdsverket, 2018
QC 20200225</p
Energy Research & Social Science
Over the last decade, two major trends concerning information processing in the environmental sci... more Over the last decade, two major trends concerning information processing in the environmental sciences have been: (1) an increasing complexity and volume of environmental data; and (2) a rapid development of computer technology. The ftrst trend would be overwhelming if it were not for the second. However, this convergence of the need for information tools and the potential to provide them has dramatically increased the need to provide environmental analysts with more intuitive information processing solutions in the form of scientiftc visualization software. Scientiftc visualization is an emerging discipline which holds considerable promise for environmental analysts examining diverse, n-dimensional environmental data sets. Incorporating scientiftc visualization systems (SVS) into the set of tools available to environmental analysts require a thoughtful approach to visual design and software requirements. Traditional approaches to requirements focus on functions or data, often leaving an analyst to deal with cumbersome, ineffective software. As visual displays are of optimal support only when they directly support user tasks, a task analysis methodology was developed and tested in this research with the objective of producing more intuitive designs and more user-oriented visualization software requirements. 355 T. L. Nyerges et al. (eds.
Nordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference
Carbon calculators have been put forth as a tool to motivate sustainable behaviour change in peop... more Carbon calculators have been put forth as a tool to motivate sustainable behaviour change in people. However, the approach of "just" presenting numbers to communicate climate footprints has not been found to be an effective strategy. In this paper, we investigate the use of an application that combines carbon footprint calculations with gamelike features in order to address the gap between awareness and behaviour. Our results are based on an interview study and show that while respondents appreciate the idea, there are several problem areas which have implications for the design of carbon calculators, including issues with targeting the "right users", the use of gamification and the absence of a social context. Furthermore, the results point towards general barriers and opportunities for design when the aim is to design for sustainable behaviour change. This includes a need to be adaptive to the transitioning process towards a low carbon lifestyle.
This paper presents the approach, progress and intermediate results from a project on energy feed... more This paper presents the approach, progress and intermediate results from a project on energy feedback in office workplaces. A system of three prototypes for energy visualization targeting office workers has been designed and implemented in an office workplace. Feedback is given both on individual basis (in a PC application) and on accumulated basis (on a screen in the reception and by an ambient representation in shape of a chandelier in the lunch room). A measurement system provides detailed data on individual electricity use, temperature, ventilation and presence. The project aims at engaging office workers to more energy efficient behaviour at work by supplying tools to raise the awareness and ability to take action, but also to implement energy feedback in organizational processes. The main goal is permanent behavioural changes, resulting in 50 % electricity reduction in individual office rooms. The project is built on a multidisciplinary and participatory approach. The visualiz...
Uploads
Papers by Cecilia Katzeff