EMPOWER

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EMPOWER's mission is to integrate creative, empathic user-centred design techniques with genuinely novel product design innovation. The current problems are:(i) users feel disengaged with the bland, utilitarian, and non-user friendly design of many existing energy control and feedback interfaces which could impact upon their general disengagement with energy efficiency; (ii) users are not aware of the connections between their decisions and energy use; (iii) designers do not know enough about user behaviour in the context of energy usage There is a gap in the market for novel and exciting beautifully designed, high-end energy control and feedback interfaces. EMPOWER's work packages will begin with ethnographic workplace studies of users' interactions with energy and decision making processes, and drill down into detailed user insights and users' mental models. These insights will underpin a series of highly iterative and novel participatory design workshops within workplaces, with users and stakeholders. The outcomes of the workshops will drive the product development process. The final outcome will be an innovative user-driven energy efficiency product, which can be commercially exploited beyond the end of the project. The project is supported by More Associates' CarbonCulture behaviour-change delivery and research platform and an ongoing collaboration with the Department of Energy and Climate Change.