Storm Drain Project Page
Storm Drain Energy (Working Title)
One bill once a month with an obscure number on it (Kwh) is a poor representation of energy to most people and is mostly ignored. We want people to be able to understand what is using energy, how much it is using and what they can do to use less. We have decided the best way to go about studying how to represent energy usage to consumers is to each design a way to present the usage. We then will collaborate on which points we think are the strongest and weakest from each idea and find a way to mold these into one beautiful design.
Our three different themes are:
- Physical Representations
- Competition/Achievement Systems
- Personal Motivation
Group Management:Members have chosen a theme or idea to explore and will be focusing on this first and foremost. We will be meeting each week to collaborate and receive feedback from each other about our progress. The goal is to try different styles of energy representation and find out why some work better than others.
Project Members:
I have been researching to decide what type of representation I think will work well. I have decided that an "in your face" appliance based representation is what I will focus on. It creates a constant reminder to people to conserve and is based off the notion that people want to conserve for one reason or another.
I have been researching different motivational factors and forms of visualization. I am leaning towards an achievement/competition system but am very interested in working with matthew on some physical implementations. Over the next few weeks, I am going to research various competitive and achievement-based social systems so that I may design an effective system for energy use.
Michael:
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I have been researching what some of the best motivators for energy saving are. Simply making energy users aware of how much energy they are using or using more intuitive units when displaying the data sounds the most promising, and I will continue to pursue this motivator while sketching up designs for visualizations. My ideas can be incorporated into my group members' designs to create one cohesive visualization.
Jennifer:
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