We’re very happy to announce that Artefact has won four International Design Excellence Awards (IDEAs) for 2010! A silver award went to Project Impact, an internal passion effort in collaboration with Carbon Design in which we created designs to influence changes in behavior towards sustainability. It started as a passion project and turned into a team creation with designers Jonas Buck and Johanna Schoemaker. You can find a great description written on Carbon’s blog. We should have a case study up on Artefact’s site today.
One aspect we haven’t talked as much about is how products designed to reduce consumption can get into more people’s hands. I previously posted about how some really excellent energy use monitoring tools are out of reach or just out of interest for a lot of people. In general I would argue they appeal to the people motivated to reduce their impact on the environment or the gadget fans. If the goal is to reduce consumption, that’s a good start but we need to do more. Here are a few ideas that made it into Project Impact, or that we’ve been thinking about since. You could read them as either business or design ideas.
Don’t put an “eco”/“econ”/“green” mode button on it.
I don’t think it matters what product we’re talking about. Why would I push that – just to feel better? I don’t have any numbers but anecdotally the people I talk to don’t trust those buttons. Neither do I. The “Econ” button in my car doesn’t appreciably affect the air temperature. The “Eco” button on some friends’ dishwashers leaves gross food on their dishes. Is it going to get the job done or not? If it is, then just make it the default. Our design, the Impact Dishwasher, lets you set the time you need dishes done. It then makes certain choices automatically and tells you the projected efficiency of your load given your selections, but it doesn’t have a special mode.
Be careful with special lines of products or an up-sell feature.
A lot of people I talk to assume that means there’s a premium. There’s a certain type who can and will buy it. There’s also some suspicion around claims made about green products and lines. A lot of claims are bunk. If truly sustainable interfaces or components were more standard then people who were just out to get a good dishwasher could end up with features that influence them to reduce consumption over time. I don’t believe that they have to be more expensive.
Consider other motivations.
Just like in video games, people can come to your designs with very different reasons in mind. As a designer, you might be thinking about how we ship a lot of our toxic waste to other countries or how we need to stem climate change. A lot of people don’t prioritize or don’t believe in those things. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t design for them – more people involved make a bigger impact, right? Consider social, dollar and budget, and other motivations. For example, something that saves energy also saves money and to a lot of people that may be more appealing than “saving the planet,” but if you cater to both styles you get more people involved. These users are still making a difference and you have an opportunity to influence them over time. The Impact App emphasizes budget and dollar savings with social tips from your friends.
Consider motivated third parties.
Believe it or not, your electric utility probably wants you to use a little less power. Many are planning on efficiency as a “resource” for the future instead of expensive new plants and regulatory processes. They have lots of programs where they spend money to help you lower your bill. Our Impact Clock design could be an independent device but we see potential for it to be provided by your utility to maximize the efficiency gains of installing a smart meter that would feed it information (which utilities are doing anyway by the millions). Landlords and facilities staff are other people highly motivated to save money for the bills that they pay for the users of their buildings – efficiency gains add up quickly in aggregate. Lots of retail stores are happy to partner for discounts or other promotions, too. It happened recently here in western Washington state. They figure customers are likely to buy other things during their visit. If you think of motivated third parties, you may not have to convince and sell to each end user.