Case-based Design Aid for Sustainable Behavior and Lifestyle

Li-Hsing Shih
1
and Yi-Hsien Chang
1

1
Dept. of Resources Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan



Abstract
This study proposes two approaches to facilitate design for sustainable behavior and lifestyle based on a
case library containing existing product designs that lead to behavior change. For each case, expected
behavior change, design patterns and technologies used are analyzed and recorded in the cases library.
In the first approach, relationship between target behavior, design pattern and technology used is
constructed based on the cases. With tables presenting the relationship, designers can find suggestions
of design patterns and technologies for a given target sustainable behavior. In the second approach,
sustainable Kansei descriptors are chosen to describe customer feelings for each case so that
relationship between Kansei description and design patterns and technologies used can be established.
After sampling measures of multiple Kansei description via a questionnaire survey, statistical
correlations between Kansei description and design patterns and technologies used are obtained.
Designers can find useful design patterns and technologies for intended feelings with Kansei
descriptors.

Keywords:
Case based reasoning, design with intent, Kansei, sustainable behavior.

1. INTRODUCTION
In the past decades, design for lower environmental
impact in manufacturing stage has caught more attention
than in use stage. Recently, focus may have turn to
environmental impact occurring in use stage. Bhamra et al
[1] stated that a great potential of lowering environmental
impact exists in household energy use. Herring and Roy [2]
suggested that a rebound effect appeared when energy
saving produced by energy efficient products is taken back
in the form of higher consumption. Many consumers,
knowing that products (e.g. light bulbs) now costs less, are
less concerned about turning them off, or even leave them
on all night. Thus these behaviors take back some of the
energy savings by the green products. Because of these
phenomenon, design for sustainable behavior (DfSB) was
discussed most anxiously recently. Eco-design has to not
only adopt green materials or energy efficient technology
but also change consumers behavior in the use stage.
Consumers decision and behavior should be incorporated
in design stage so that eco-design could lead consumer to
a sustainable way of living.
There are many literatures working on design that
can lead to behavior change, although they could be
presented in different terms. For instance, Lilley [3], Elias
et al [4], Lockton et al [5], Wever et al [6] and Pettersen
and Boks [7] worked on design intervention
emphasizing that designers should take responsibility of
user behavior. If applied to DfSB, design and technology
should persuade or guide users to sustainable way of using
products. Design intervention was categorized into three
types: educational intervention, technological intervention
and product-led intervention. In product-led intervention,
designers can adopt concepts of behavior steering,
eco-feedback and intelligent product or systems to guide
consumers. Jelsma [8] worked more on the design
philosophy behavior steering. Wever et al [6] suggested
to involve users in the design stage and used the
term user-centered design where designers should
collect information, identify needs of users and invite
users to involve, evaluate and test the product design.
Lockton et al have had a series of studies and developed
methodology called design with intent (DWI)
([5][9][10][11]). They presented three ways to influence
user behavior: enabling, motivating, and constraining
behavior. Wever et al [6] integrated the concepts
mentioned above and suggested more work could be done
in design for sustainable behavior area. To summarize,
there are several ways to influence user behavior including
(a) Eco-feedback
(b) Educational intervention
(c) Scripting, enabling behavior
(d) Forced functionality, intelligence system
Locton et al presented useful DWI method with 11
target behaviors and more than 101 design patterns and 8
lenses that can be adopted to achieve target behaviors.
They [9] mentioned that DWI method can also be used in
design for sustainable behavior. In this study, target
behavior and design pattern are included as major
elements of domain model of case based reasoning.
On the other hand, technology should also be
developed for changing people behavior instead of simply
Proceedings of EcoDesign 2011 International Symposium

334
OI 10.1007/978-94-007-3010-6_65, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012 D
, Design for Innovative Value Towards a Sustainable Society M. Matsumoto et al. (eds.),
fulfilling their needs (Verbeek et al [12]). Fogg [13]
started research on persuasive technology that focuses
on how technology could persuade or influence people.
Jager et al [14] used persuasive technology to raise
awareness of energy consumption of household devices.
Midden et al [15] suggested using persuasive technology
to encourage sustainable behavior. Midden et al [16]
summarized four ways in which human and technology
interact with respect to sustainability. The four roles
technology can play are (1) as intermediary, (2) as
amplifier, (3) as determinant, and (4) as promoter of
environmentally significant behavior.
This study aims at helping designers find useful
design patterns and technologies for DfSB. Existing cases
of DfSB were collected to form a case library so that
experience can be extracted. Concepts of case based
reasoning (CBR) such as setting domain model, retrieve,
and reuse of cases are adopted to facilitate DfSB.

2. DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABLE BEHAVIOR
WITH CBR
This section discusses how to extract information of
past cases and find useful suggestions for designers. In
light of the above literatures, design patterns and
technology used are found essential for leading to
behavior change. For example, DWI provides 11 target
behaviors and 101 related design patterns. Using the idea
of DWI, existing cases are analyzed and coded with a
domain model that consists of target behavior and design
patterns.
In addition to design patterns and target behavior,
authors suggest that domain model should include: (1)
technology used in DfSB products and (2) emotional or
Kansei descriptors that are used to describe the feelings
and affective influence of users (see Figure 1). The second
idea is from Kansei engineering approach that builds
relationship between design parameters and Kansei
descriptors so that design parameters can be properly
controlled to have a design reaching users emotional
expectation (Nagamachi [17]).
Target behaviors and users feelings represented by
Kansei descriptors could be seen as expected results of
DfSB while design patterns and technologies are means to
behavior change. Hence, a domain model is proposed to
describe past cases containing:

(1) target behavior that are adopted from DWI method,
(2) design patterns that are adopted for DWI method,
(3) Kansei descriptors to describe the feelings of users for
each case product, and
(4) technologies used in the cases.


Fig. 1: Scheme of case based design aid for DfSB

With the domain model, cases of products with DfSB
were written into a case library. To demonstrate the
approach, fifty household products with DfSB were
collected, analyzed and coded based on the domain model.
The cases are collected from websites of large companies
(like Philips), platforms of green products, and
descriptions of intelligent house, and meet three
conditions: (1) leading to sustainable behavior, (2)
household use excluding personal mobile devices, and (3)
applying information and communication technologies
(ICT). Since there are only fifty cases, limited number of
design patterns and target behaviors out of DWI are found.
Table 1 shows six target behaviors while Table 2 contains
fifty design patterns. Numbers of target behavior and
design patterns should increase as the number of collected
cases increases.
Table 3 shows examples of 20 Kansei descriptors
that are collected from literature describing sustainable
lifestyle. Table 4 shows some examples of 23 ICTs found
in the cases. Two approaches that start from target
behavior and intended feelings to facilitate DfSB using the
case library are presented in the following two sections.
Table 1: Target behaviors for DfSB for household ICT
products
User-system interaction
S1
User follows a process or path, doing things in a
sequence chosen by the designer
S2
User follows a process or path thats optimized for
those particular circumstances
S3
Decision among alternatives: a users choice is
guided
S4 Only certain users/groups of users can use something
S7
Users only get functionality when environmental
criteria are satisfied
User-user interaction
U2
Users (and groups of users) do interact with, and
affect each other while using a system
335

Table 2: Examples of the fifty design patterns adopted
from DWI
index Design patterns
A3 Conveyor belts
A4 Feature deletion
A6 Material properties
A8 Pave the cowpaths

I8 Summary feedback
I9 Tailoring
I10 Tunneling & wizards
Table 3: Examples of Kansei descriptors
Sustainable
Kansei descriptors
energy-saving
environmental-friendly
good looking
plain
simple
safe

harmonious
tranquil/peaceful

Table 4: Examples of ICT used in DfSB
index Technology application
a display
b
lighting/ to guide by
lighting
c camera/ monitor
d audio
e voice record
f
alarm
clock/stopwatch/timer

u automation
v remote control
w
sensor that detects
circumstance

3. DfSB STARTING WITH TARGET
BEHAVIOR

After the case library of products with DfSB is built,
cases with intended target behaviors could be retrieved. To
use this approach, premise is that designers know what
behavior DfSB intends to lead to. Once designer has an
idea of intended behavior, cases with the specified target
behavior could be retrieved and therefore design patterns
and technologies adopted in the cases can be found. Since
multiple cases that have the same target behavior may be
retrieved, number of times that design patterns and
technologies appear is used to reflect strength of
suggestion. Design patterns and technologies with more
times of appearance are considered highly related to the
target behavior.
Table 5 shows design patterns recommended for
various target behaviors where design patterns on the left
are highly recommended because they appear more times
than others in the retrieved cases. Indices representing
design patterns are shown in last section. In other words,
the number of appearance of the design patterns in
retrieved cases decreases from left to right. Similarly,
Table 6 shows technologies recommended for various
target behaviors where technologies on the left are
strongly recommended.
Designs could refer to these recommended design
patterns and technologies for conceptual design of DfSB.
Combination of multiple design patterns and technologies
could be acquired from these tables. Since these
recommendations are based on past cases, users may be
more convinced as the number of cases increases.

Table 5: Recommended design patterns for various target
behaviors
Target
behavior
(Strongly (weakly
Recomm) Recomm)
S1 A12, I6, M7, P8, ..C10, M14, S3
S2 I6, I9, A12, E3,. P10, M11, M14, S2, S5
S3 I6, I8, I9, A3, .., C6, C10, M1, S6
S4 A3, M14
S7 A12, I6, L1, ., P14, C6, C10
U2 I6, I8, A12, L1,... M3, M11, S2, S3

Table 6: Recommended technologies for various target
behaviors
Target
behavior
(Strongly (weakly
Recomm) Recomm)
S1 a, b, o, p, f, j, ., s, w, g, k, v
S2 o, a, o, j, u, b, . k, c, e, l
S3 a, o, b, h, j, p, c.., m, q, w
S4 a, c, g
S7 U, v, t, b, f, j
U2 a, o, d, b, .... l, r, u, v
336

4. DfSB STARTING WITH INTENDED FEELINGS
OF USERS

Designers conducting DfSB may start with intended
feelings that a new design would bring to users. Kansei
(emotional) descriptors were selected to describe feelings
of potential users with respect to each case. In a
questionnaire survey, consent/dissent of using Kansei
descriptors to describe feeling for each case is collected
from each respondent. More than 30 respondents were
asked whether they would use each of the twenty Kansei
descriptors for each case. For each case, we can collect 20
normalized scores (ranging from 0 to 1.0) with respect to
20 Kansei descriptors. If the score is 1.0, it means that all
respondents used the descriptor to describe the case.
With the survey results, correlation coefficients
between scores of Kansei descriptors and appearances of
design patterns and technologies are hence calculated.
Tables 7 shows design patterns with positive correlation
with Kansei descriptors. Table 8 shows technologies with
positive correlation with Kansei descriptors. To achieve
intended Kansei descriptors in DfSB, design patterns and
technologies with highly positive correlations are
recommended. Contrarily, those negatively correlated
design patterns and technologies are not recommended.
Designers could certainly start with multiple Kansei
descriptors and thus find more suggestions using the
information in Tables 7 and 8.

Table 7: Examples of design patterns with
positive correlation with Kansei descriptors
Kansei
descriptors
Design patterns
Highly
positive corr
Design
patterns
Positive
corr
Energy saving I8, A11, I6, P2,
P14
A9
Env.
protection
A11, P2, I6,
P14
A9, I8
Good
looking
I6, I8, P2, P14 C6, A11,
L1, L7,
L10, P12,
S2, S5, S6
Plain A11, I6, I8, P2,
P14
A
9
Natural M7 A4, A9,
A11, E7, E9,
P9, P10, I5
Safe M11, M14 A8, I2, C9,
P13
.

Table 8: Examples of technologies with positive
correlation with Kansei descriptors

Technologies
(Highly
positive
corr)
Technologies
(Positive
Corr)
K
a
n
s
e
i

d
e
s
c
r
i
p
t
o
r
s

Energy
saving
b j o f
Env
protection
b j o f
Good
looking
b j o
plain b j o f
.. .
relaxing s
leisure a p
friendly e
warm r u
simple f l j o

5. CONCLUSIONS

Two approaches to facilitate DfSB are proposed with
concept of case based reasoning. Cases of existing DfSB
are collected and expressed with a domain model that
includes target behavior, Kansei descriptor, design pattern
and technology used. In the first approach, relationship
between target behavior and design patterns and
technologies used is established via statistical analysis
based on the fifty cases. Designers can start with target
sustainable behavior and find suggestion of design
patterns and technologies using the tables provided.
In the second approach, Kansei descriptors for
sustainable lifestyle are chosen to describe customer
feelings for each case so that relationships between Kansei
sustainable description and design patterns and
technologies used are established. For each case, measures
of multiple Kansei description from customer opinion are
collected via a questionnaire survey. Designers can start
with intended Kansei descriptors and find useful design
patterns and technologies based on the correlation
analysis.
Both approaches would provide recommended design
patterns and technologies that could be basis for
conceptual design of DfSB. Two approaches could be
adopted simultaneously, starting with both target
behaviors and Kansei descriptors and obtaining multiple
suggestions of design patterns and technologies using the
tables resulted from statistical analysis.
337
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