A survey of empirical studies on persuasive technologies to promote sustainable living

Abstract

Persuasive technology is the application of technology to change human behavior or attitude or both. As applied to sustainable Human Computer Interaction (HCI), it has been the focus of much recent research. To provide an understanding of scope of these studies, this article reviews the literature on this topic published between 2000 and 2016. It is limited to research articles providing an evaluation of persuasive technologies published in peer-reviewed publications and conference proceedings in environmental sustainability. Appropriate articles were found using the Web of Knowledge, PsycINFO, ASCE digital library and the ACM digital library, using combinations of keywords. Also included were articles meeting the inclusion criteria cited in the ones resulting from the initial search.In total, 38 articles were reviewed, of which 61% focused on electricity consumption issues, with the remaining investigating a variety of other sustainability issues. Further, the results from the analysis of these articles found that the duration of the studies was under one month for approximately half of them. The sample size of the 14 field tests involving families ranged from 1 households to 30, with 12 studies involving a sample size of less than or equal to 10. The sample size of the field studies involving individuals ranged from 4 to 651. Both field and lab studies collected quantitative (consumption and interaction data) and qualitative data (surveys, focus groups, interviews and observations). The results from these 38 articles found that behavioral changes were observed in 42% of the studies. In addition, of the 19 studies reporting an increase in awareness, 8 also reported a behavior change, suggesting a relationship between awareness and behavioral change. This review concludes that more research is needed, specifically, there is a need to design interventions using a socio-technical approach rather than focusing on individuals as the unit of analysis for design and evaluation. In addition, there is a need to expand the research beyond user considerations to include societal and political ones.