AGILE USER-CENTERED DESIGN OF AN IOT-ENABLED GAMIFIED INTERVENTION FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION AT THE WORKPLACE

Abstract

Energy conservation in workplace environments is recognized as both important and impactful towards reducing worldwide CO2 emissions and protecting the environment. However, the focus of existing research has not primarily been on the employees' energy consumption behavior, albeit its potential impact on workplace energy efficiency. Aiming to affect employee energy behavior change towards more conscious consumption patterns, we have adopted gamification, a contemporary instrument that, when carefully utilized can lead to employee behavior change. Furthermore, we have followed an Iterative & Incremental Agile User Centered Design (UCD) approach towards designing a gamified IoT-enabled mobile app that provides energy consumption-related feedback to employees at their workplace. We present the characteristics of the designed app, as well as explain the rationale behind their choice. Usability results derived from employees in 3 workplaces at 3 different EU countries indicate that through our approach we designed a prototype gamified solution very well perceived and engaging to our target audience, scoring high in both usability, as well as user experience aspects. We further enhanced the app with additional functionality, according to the test users' feedback, towards producing the first integrated version. Initial results from testing this revised first integrated version of the app, revealed even more enhanced usability and user experience results, compared to the previous version. Overall, our derived evidence suggests that, by following an Iterative & Incremental Agile UCD approach within our field of application, we have derived a gamified app for energy-saving at the workplace that is conceived of as highly usable and provides for a positive user experience.