Beyond Individual Persuasion: Towards a Paradigm Shift in Interactive Visualisation and Sensing for Environmental Change

该项目的总体目标是创新交互式可视化和环境变化感知的设计，重新定位它们，使其超越当前作为个人说服杠杆的用途，走向作为连接行为变化和可持续发展政策的技术的扩展角色。这种联系是双向的：一方面帮助人们将现有的气候变化和能源政策与日常生活联系起来；另一方面，通过增进对她们自己日常做法的了解，使她们能够影响和参与政策制定。虽然利用数字技术干预措施试图说服个人采取可持续行动肯定有好处，但同样明显的是，应对气候紧急情况所需的大规模变化需要政策干预，而不仅仅是促进个人行动。我们认为，数字技术在促进参与环境可持续性政策方面具有巨大的未开发潜力。该项目提出了实现这一潜力的雄心，以及转变数字技术在环境可持续性行为改变方面的作用的愿景。这项工作将针对各种住宅和非住宅建筑中与建筑环境相关的特定实践和政策，以及政策背景，从以组织为重点的变化（例如办公楼的温度政策）到以增加可再生能源使用为重点的政策（例如，通过允许屋顶太阳能的集体自我消费或家庭或社区环境中的需求转移）。这种多领域的方法是由四个不同的用户合作伙伴参与实现的，他们认识到拟议项目的相关性，并将促进私营部门（Fosters + partners）、非营利机构（Carbon Coop; Repowering）和高等教育部门（UCL）的研究部署。此外，项目合作伙伴奥雅纳的战略建议将进一步扩大我们工作的范围和影响（另见支持函）。该项目将利用网络连接的传感器节点和显示器，通常被认为是物联网（IoT）的一部分。该研究将遵循以用户为中心的方法，涉及健壮，功能齐全的“高保真”物联网交互原型的迭代开发，并通过社会科学的研究方法进行野外评估，这要归功于我们多学科研究团队的密切合作。此外，该项目提出了一种新颖的参与式原型研究方法：通过结合民族志和以用户为中心的设计方法，我们将使（一些）参与者不仅参与设计，而且参与交互式可视化和传感原型的技术开发。与更传统的以研究人员为主导的以用户为中心的设计和原型设计同时，实践研讨会（如“黑客马拉松”）和在线参与活动将在研究计划中发挥关键作用，加强社区兴趣与可视化设计之间的联系。这些活动将利用与社区之间牢固的现有研究关系，以及大量易于使用的开源交互工具和软件库，以及广泛可用的硬件。这种方法旨在积极提高研究过程的社会和环境可持续性：在整个项目中促进社区对开发的开源原型的所有权，将防止它们在研究资金结束后成为不可维护的电子垃圾。此外，这种方法也将使影响最大化。参与式原型活动将针对包括青少年在内的多个年龄组，为他们提供STEM技能学习机会。我们与社区合作伙伴的合作将帮助我们接触到代表性不足的群体，特别是来自白人和黑人社区的群体

The overarching goal of this project is to innovate the design of interactive visualisations and sensing for environmental change, reorienting them beyond their current use as levers of individual persuasion, towards an extended role as technologies that can link behaviour change and sustainability policy. The link aims to be bidirectional: on one hand helping people in relating existing climate change and energy policies to everyday life; on the other empowering them in influencing and engaging with policy making by generating an enhanced understanding of their own everyday practices. While there is certainly merit in using digital technology interventions to try and persuade individuals to act sustainably, it is also clear that the large-scale changes needed to tackle the climate emergency require policy interventions, beyond promoting individual action. We believe that there is vast untapped potential for digital technology to catalyse engagement with environmental sustainability policies. This project puts forward the ambition to realize such potential, and the vision of transforming the role of digital technology in relation to behaviour change for environmental sustainability.The work will target in particular practices and policies related to the built environment, in a variety of domestic and non-domestic buildings, and with policy contexts ranging from organization-focused change (e.g. temperature policy in office buildings) to policies focused on increasing the use of renewable energy (e.g. by enabling collective self-consumption of rooftop solar or demand shifting within household or community settings). Such a multi-domain approach is enabled by the involvement of four different user partners, who recognize the relevance of the proposed project and will facilitate research deployments across the private (Fosters + Partners), non-profit (Carbon Coop; Repowering) and higher education (UCL) sectors. Moreover, strategic advice by project partner Arup will further broaden the scope and impact of our work (see also letters of support).The project will leverage network-connected sensor nodes and displays, generally considered part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The research will follow a user-centred approach, involving the iterative development of robust, fully functional "high fidelity" IoT interactive prototypes and their evaluation in-the-wild through research methods from the social sciences, thanks to the close collaboration of our multi-disciplinary research team.Moreover, the project puts forward a novel participatory prototyping research approach: by combining ethnographic and user-centred design methodologies we will involve (some of the) participants not only in the design, but also in the technical development of interactive visualization and sensing prototypes. In parallel with more traditional researcher-led user-centred design and prototyping, hands-on workshops (such as 'hackathons') and online engagement activities will play a pivotal role in the research plan strengthening links between community interests and visualization design. These activities will leverage strong existing research relationships with communities along with the abundance of easy to use open source interactive tools and software libraries, and widely available hardware. This approach is designed to actively increase the social and environmental sustainability of the research process: promoting the community ownership of the open source prototypes developed throughout the project will prevent them from becoming unmaintainable e-waste once the research funding ends. Moreover, this approach will also maximize impact. The participatory prototyping activities will target multiple age groups, including teenagers, offering them STEM skills learning opportunities. Our collaboration with community-based partners will help us to reach under-represented groups particularly from BAME communities