Title
EMPOWER

CoPED ID
76402455-5834-471a-9e3f-896f5d7180c5

Status
Closed


Value
£419,945

Start Date
Sept. 5, 2010

End Date
Sept. 5, 2012

Description

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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.

Subjects by relevance
  1. Energy efficiency
  2. Product development
  3. Users
  4. User-centeredness
  5. Innovations
  6. Participatory design
  7. Energy consumption (energy technology)
  8. User interfaces
  9. Usability
  10. Projects
  11. User study
  12. Innovativeness
  13. Design (artistic creation)

Extracted key phrases
  1. User friendly design
  2. Novel product design innovation
  3. Empathic user
  4. Detailed user insight
  5. User behaviour
  6. Energy efficiency product
  7. Novel participatory design workshop
  8. Innovative user
  9. EMPOWER
  10. End energy control
  11. Design technique
  12. Energy usage
  13. Product development process
  14. Feedback interface
  15. Ethnographic workplace study

Related Pages

UKRI project entry

UK Project Locations