This thesis introduces and critically reflects on a design programme, Storyforming, that explores ways to design objects and places to enrich daily life narratives. Using an experimental design approach, the goal is to exemplify and explore this idea with discursive artefacts that, through their physical and temporal form, act as catalysts in the construction of meaningful experiences.

In the current sustainability discourse, behavioural change has been pointed out as a key factor in achieving a sustainable society. Historically, design has been very effective in increasing production and consumption behaviours by creating new types of needs and, in a way, manufacturing desire (Forty, 1986). Drawing on this, the overarching aim of this thesis is the investigation of the ways design, through a suggested programme, can afford alternative types of meaningful experiences in contrast to the prevailing consumer culture.

The empirical work reported in the thesis stems from several research projects looking into the matter of energy use in relation to design. In addition, two of the projects have been carried out in the author’s own design practice. Some concepts are explored more in-depth—involving events such as field studies, situated interviews, workshops, prototype building, design interventions in the form of domestication probes, and contextual studies ranging from a few weeks up to a year—while other concepts exist only as sketches or photo montages. The diversity of these concepts, the design experiments, helps span a design space becoming a new provisional design programme. The idea for this programme has evolved from observations and reflections made throughout the experiments presented in the thesis.

The general results are the suggested approach of Storyforming, which focuses on the design of artefacts supporting daily narratives that can be used to create engagement, meaning, and alternative values applicable to the discourse of sustainable behaviour.

Specific contributions are the selection of design experiments. In the thesis, the experiments have first been examined from the perspective of stories and forming as a basis for the new programme formulation. Through this articulation of the programme, the experiments are revisited through three leitmotifs, part of the provisional programme focusing on different properties related to the aspect of forming. From the perspective of the user, these themes—seeing and accessing designs, exploring and expressing complexity, and sharing experiences and negotiating use—are finally elaborated on in relation to other theoretical concepts as well as their implications for future research.

This thesis presents a collection of experimental designs that approach the problem of growing electricity consumption in homes. From the perspective of design, the intention has been to critically explore the design space of energy awareness artefacts to reinstate awareness of energy use in everyday practice. The design experiments were used as vehicles for thinking about the relationship between physical form, interaction, and social practice. The rationale behind the concepts was based on a small-scale ethnography, situated interviews, and design experience. Moreover, the thesis compares designer intention and actual user experiences of a prototype that was installed in nine homes in a residential area in Stockholm for three months. This was done in order to elicit tacit knowledge about how the concept was used in real-world domestic settings, to challenge everyday routines, and to enable both users and designers to critically reflect on artefacts and practices. From a design perspective, contributions include design approaches to communicating energy use: visualizations for showing relationships between behaviour and electricity consumption, shapes and forms to direct action, means for turning restrictions caused by energy conservation into central parts of the product experience, and ways to promote sustainable behaviour with positive driving forces based on user lifestyles. The general results indicate that inclusion is of great importance when designing energy awareness artefacts; all members of the household should be able to access, interact with, and reflect on their energy use. Therefore, design-related aspects such as placement and visibility, as well as how the artefact might affect the social interactions in the home, become central. Additionally, the thesis argues that these types of artefacts can potentially create awareness accompanied by negative results such as stress. A challenge for the designer is to create artefacts that communicate and direct energy use in ways that are attractive and can be accepted by all household members as a possible way of life.

Electricity consumption has been rising significantly in the western world the last decades and this has affected the environment negatively. Efficient use and more energy conservative usage patterns could be ways to approach this problem. However, electricity has for a long time actively been hidden away and it is rarely thought of unless it ceases to exist. From the perspective of critical design, we have been working to find methods to visualise electricity and electricity consumption in everyday life to promote environmentally positive behavioural change. In this paper, we are looking at how aspects of lifestyles can be used in design as central driving forces that could lead to changed behaviour. Attempts to promote behavioural changes related to energy consumption might be successfully carried out when people are offered desirable alternatives that are engaging and that do not impose a perceived extra burden in their everyday life. This argument is exemplified through two design concepts, the AWARE Laundry Lamp and the Energy Plant, which are examples on how to increase people’s energy awareness and offer them means for reducing their energy consumption in the home. Both prototypes are inspired by current trends in lifestyle as well as actual observed user behaviour.

New interfaces to the energy system can facilitate changes of habits and provide means to control the household’s use of energy. In this paper, we look at energy use and such interfaces in the home from a socio- technical perspective. We describe how interviews and user observations can be used in combination with the theory of domestication to inform and inspire the design of interfaces to the energy system. As a result of our approach, we present the Energy AWARE Clock, an example of a new type of electricity meter that challenges the norm of how the electricity system is typically represented in the home. The Energy AWARE Clock makes use of a clock metaphor to visualise electricity-use in relation to time in everyday life. Energy-awareness products always challenge domestic social patterns and it is important to consider these aspects in the design process to find successful solutions for the future. 

Smart electricity meters and home displays are being installed in people’s homes with the assumption that households will make the necessary efforts to reduce their electricity consumption. However, present solutions do not sufficiently account for the social implications of design. There is a potential for greater savings if we can better understand how such designs affect behaviour. In this paper, we describe our design of an energy awareness artefact – the Energy AWARE Clock – and discuss it in relation to behavioural processes in the home. A user study is carried out to study the deployment of the prototype in real domestic contexts for three months. Results indicate that the Energy AWARE Clock played a significant role in drawing households’ attention to their electricity use. It became a natural part of the household and conceptions of electricity became naturalized into informants’ everyday language.

There is a potential for greater electricity savings if we can better understand how design affects behaviour. This paper describes om design of an energy awareness artefact - the Energy AWARE Clock- and discusses it in relation to behavioural processes in the home. The Energy AWARE Clock showed to play a significant role in drawing households' attention to their electricity use. It became a natural part of the household and conceptions of electricity became natmalized into informants' everyday language.

Aldrig ensam: bilderbok till VR

Jag har utforskat bilderboken och försökt utveckla en ny berättarform som bjuder in läsaren till en djupare dimension på samma gång som den ger bilderboken en chans att komma till “liv” på ett fysiskt vis. Jag har gjort detta genom att återskapa en barnbok, som jag illustrerat och skrivit tillsammans med Dr. Heather Briscoe, till en VR upplevelse.

Genom att hämta mina akvarell-illustrationer ur bilderboken utforskar jag kontrasten mellan det analoga tvådimensionella och det digitala tredimensionella genom temat “Relation till naturen”. Berättelsen handlar om stunder ur ett barns liv och familjebanden som introducerar naturens kretslopp genom tidlös visdom.

In this paper we present an installation done in collaboration with Volvo Cars® for the international motor shows in Geneva, New York, and Shanghai during spring 2017. To envision and produce a future car sound for silent vehicles, users were given high-level control of a sophisticated synthesizer through playing with an attainable and inviting “color book”-inspired interface. The synthesizer algorithm was designed to dynamically create a rich mix of looped sounds that could blend with a sonic background scenery that had ecoacoustic validity, and that could metaphorically align with the visual elements. The installation ran faultlessly for around thirty days and with tens of thousands recorded sessions.

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.

People’s domestic habits are increasingly being targeted to reduce levels of CO2 emissions. Whereas domestic energy consumption has received a lot of attention with several reported studies on sustainable practices, there are very few studies on workplace practices. Nevertheless, these are considered as having much potential for reducing energy consumption. This paper presents the findings from two field studies where two different types of prototypes for visualizing energy use were designed, implemented and evaluated in different types of workplace settings – factories and offices. The studies used design probes to explore how visual feedback for electricity use was interpreted and acted upon by employees in work settings. A striking observation was that it is very difficult to get people to change to more pro-environmental behavior and practices in a workplace environment. The paper discusses why this might be the case.

The EnergyLife mobile interface incorporates lessons from environmental psychology and feedback intervention to relay information from appliance sensors, offeringa gaming environment that rewards usersfor decreased electricity consumption.