IN
DEGREE PROJECT COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS
,
STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2020
Sustainability at Work: How Can
Persuasive Design And
User-Centered Methods be Used To
Conciliate Sustainable Behavior
and Work Goals?
A case Study
KÉVIN AH-SON
ABSTRACT
Economic activity has a significant impact on the environment, which causes many
issues. To reduce this impact, they must adopt more sustainable behaviors. Yet,
environmental objectives often oppose their own goals. This thesis studies how
companies can use designs thinking to meet their sustainability objectives and
conciliate them with the personal goals of the company's employees. Through a case
study, I analyzed action taken by two companies as well as literature on this topic.
Based on this information, I used user-centered design and persuasive design to
define guidelines to help companies solve the contradiction between sustainability
and their own goals. These guidelines were implemented and tested through an
interactive prototype. This thesis studies how vital
context awareness and
adaptability are, when trying to influence the employees’ behavior to become more
sustainable in complex workplace environments.
SAMMANFATTNING
Ekonomiska aktiviteter påverkar miljön i högsta grad, vilket orsakar många problem.
För att minska denna påverkan måste man införa ett mer hållbart beteende. Ändå
motverkar miljömålen ofta de egna målen. Denna avhandling studerar hur företag
kan använda sig av designtänkande för att uppfylla de egna hållbarhetsmålen och
förena dem med företagets anställdas personliga mål. Genom en fallstudie
analyserade jag åtgärder som vidtagits av två företag samt litteratur om detta ämne.
Baserat på denna information använde jag användarcentrerad design och
övertygande design för att ta fram riktlinjer för att hjälpa företag att lösa
motsättningarna
mellan
hållbarhet och de egna målen. Dessa riktlinjer
implementerades och testades genom en interaktiv prototyp. Denna avhandling
studerar hur synnerligen viktigt det är att vara medveten om sammanhanget och att
kunna anpassa sig när man försöker påverka de anställdas beteende, för att få dem
att tänka mer hållbart i komplexa arbetsmiljöer.
Sustainability at Work: How Can Persuasive Design
And User-Centered Methods be Used To Conciliate
Sustainable Behavior and Work Goals?
A case Study
Kevin Ah-son
Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden
kevinas@kth.se
ABSTRACT
Economic activity has a significant impact on the environment, which causes many issues. To reduce this impact, they must adopt more sustainable behaviors. Yet, environmental objectives often oppose their own goals. This thesis studies how companies can use designs thinking to meet their sustainability objectives and conciliate them with the personal goals of the company's employees. Through a case study, I analyzed action taken by two companies as well as literature on this topic. Based on this information, I used user-centered design and persuasive design to define guidelines to help companies solve the contradiction between sustainability and their own goals. These guidelines were implemented and tested through an interactive prototype. This thesis studies how vital context awareness and
adaptability are, when trying to influence the
employees’ behavior to become more sustainable in complex workplace environments.
KEYWORDS
Sustainability, workplace, design, behavior, guidelines, user-centered, persuasion
INTRODUCTION
Due to the impact of human activities on the planet, sustainability became an increasingly discussed issue. In order to solve this issue, imposing environmental regulations and more eco-friendly technologies and processes are not enough. We need to change our behaviors [1,2] and act in a more sustainable way to become less harmful to the environment [2,3]. It's particularly
true for businesses since their activities are especially damaging to the environment. These changes can be challenging to adopt for many companies. Most consequences of economic activities are indirect and take a long time to appear, which makes them challenging to understand and predict[4]. Due to this uncertainty, people have disparate views on sustainability's importance. Moreover, in many businesses, sustainability isn't a priority, and employees are often not educated about this issue.
Behavioral research shows that it is indeed possible to influence users' behaviors. The systems made to do this are called persuasive
systems. This topic has been studied extensively [5–11], and several models and frameworks have been developed. The most commonly used is the Persuasive System Design model (PSD) [12]. However, due to the complexity and diversity of the real-world contexts, following this model can be complicated.
Sustainability is a very complex concept involving economic, environmental as well as social aspects [1]. This paper focuses on the ecological side of sustainability and in the context and constraints of the workplace environment. Using both persuasive design models and user-centered methods, I aimed to define design guidelines that can encourage sustainable behaviors and help to conciliate them with businesses' needs. This study could be further used to help firms designing a persuasive system for sustainability [13].
I used different methods. Firstly, I conducted a literature review to understand the current
State-of-the-art in this domain. After that, I worked with two different companies that place sustainability as one of their core values. Avanade and another one, to which I will refer to as Company 2. I observed how they conciliate sustainability with their own needs. Then I performed semi-structured interviews to get a better understanding of their processes. Based on those findings, I defined design guidelines to help companies to become more sustainable. To test these guidelines and confront them with the real-world's complexity, I built a software prototype that implemented these guidelines, and tested it. This study suggests that, even if these guidelines are useful, they can't always be applied when confronted with the complexity of the real world. Elements like the workplace add a whole new dimension of complexity and details to take into account. For the system to be as effective as possible, It is crucial to take into account the context and to adapt the persuasive system using user-centered methods.
RELATED WORK
The importance of sustainability
Researchers, as well as companies, have extensively studied issues related to sustainability and how one can become more sustainable through time [13]. However, sustainability lacks a clear definition and is often given different definitions depending on the research project carried on [14,15]. Depending on the definition used, it can encompass ecology, economic, and social aspects[1,15]. The most common definition is the one of the World Commission on Environment and Development: "the development
that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [14]. However, this definition is broad and doesn't clearly define sustainability or how it could be measured [1,14].
The role of ethics
Sustainability also raises important ethical questions about the impact, roles, and responsibilities of the different stakeholders. How much sustainability is needed? How much are we
willing to give for it? Who should take responsibility? The answers to these questions are critical to solving the paradox between sustainability and business needs. The question of the ecosystems' values is crucial. While some states that ecosystems have an intrinsic value, meaning that they are valuable regardless of their usefulness. Some others consider it as a means to other ends, such as profit or safety [4].
Influencing behaviors
Many studies have been conducted on the possibility of influencing users' behaviors, and several models and frameworks have been developed [5,16,17]. The most used is the Persuasive System Design model (PSD) [12]. However, human behavior is complex and influenced by many factors. Some of these are intrinsic to the task, such as its complexity and social impact [6]. In contrast, some others are extrinsic to the task and depend on the context [7–9]. Motivation is a significant factor in persuasion[9]. On top of these elements, it is often necessary to have an element that triggers the action [8]. Even so, research shows that trying to change behavior is extremely difficult and might not work all the time, especially if the expected changes are significant. To deal with these changes more efficiently, studies recommend splitting significant changes into smaller parts [7–9,11].
Researchers differentiate two different core concepts: attitude and behavior [14]. On the one hand, attitude shows the mental predisposition of people. It is about how they think, feel, and tend to behave in certain situations, on the other hand, behavior occurs after the attitude; it is what action is done in a particular case [14]. They are, most of the time, consistent. However, that's not always the case. In some cases, there are conflicts or inconsistencies between them. In this situation, one will unconsciously work to correct this dissonance, which can lead to a modification of the attitude or of the behavior. [14,15]. The existence of this link implies that instead of directly trying to change the behavior, it might be possible to change it indirectly by acting on the attitude.
The PSD model
The Persuasive System Design (PSD) model is the most commonly used one for persuasive systems. This model presents important points to focus on for people who want to build more efficient persuasive systems. In this model, the researchers define persuasive systems as any system designed to reinforce or change the target's attitude and behavior without using coercion or deception[12]. To do so, the system designer has to clearly define who the persuader and the persuadee are. It is crucial to understand the users' goals and context to adopt the best strategy [12]. To have an impact on these factors, it is essential to understand the target users, their characteristics, needs, and goals[7,11,12,18]. This model stresses the importance of many elements that need to be taken into account when designing a persuasive system, such as ease of use, convenience, consistency, attractiveness, and simplicity. It regroups these elements under main principles [12], which are outlined below.
Primary task support
The system should support the users in the task that they are trying to do. It should not be a burden for the users.
Dialogue support
The system should communicate with the users and encourage them to adopt the target behavior. Credibility
The system must be credible. If the users don't believe in the system, they might not accept the target changes.
Social support
The system should encourage social behavior. It should encourage people to adopt the target behaviors.
The workplace environment
In workplace environments, increasing sustainability and adopting more sustainable behavior is challenging. Indeed, companies often have other goals than sustainability, such as limiting risk, improving margin and efficiency. These goals are often incompatible with sustainability, the actions needed to attain them
would hurt sustainability [10]. Moreover, changing processes take effort and time, they might be challenging to justify to the companies shareholders [4].
However, this situation has recently evolved. Since more and more people became aware of sustainability issues, sustainability became a criterion that can impact companies' attractiveness and image [4,14]. Still, many companies only perceive the possible danger of their actions and the impact it can have on them, for example, the closing of factories caused by natural catastrophes. Instead of seeing the global threat for the environment and society. Although this way of thinking reduces sustainability to an investment, which might lead to the protection of only the resources that companies find necessary, it is still consistent with environmental preservation [4].
When it comes to the employees, they already have work to do and might not be aware of or interested in sustainability. Even if they are, they are used to work in some ways. Changing it would imply learning and additional efforts, conflicting with their work objectives. Moreover, work often implies repetitive tasks. When doing that, employees are more likely to follow their habits and not try something new [13]. Forcing changes in a company can disturb and confuse employees, as well as create anxiety and uncertainty
[10,13,18,19], which can lead to a deterioration of the work quality and difficulties to adopt the new processes [10,19]. It can also frustrate them and decrease their motivation [17]. Therefore it is crucial that measures taken by companies do not to hurt the employees capacity to do their main tasks [18,20] and to be clearly defined and explained. Employees must understand what is changing and why this change is necessary for them and the company [9,11].
Furthermore, the workplace is a social environment where many employees work together. When part of such a group, employees generally feel less personally concerned and are likely to follow what the majority is doing [13]. In that case, successfully influencing the behavior of people might be used as leverage to influence more people. Still, one lousy impression can deeply hurt changes. Moreover, most of the time, in the workplace, individuals have work to do and 3
know what kind of behavior is expected from them. In that situation, one is likely to adopt the target behavior. Still, they are less likely to take the initiative by themselves and to do more than expected from them [13]. Moreover, research shows that in workplace environments, leaders have an essential impact on the adoption and change of processes. If they are convinced and adopt the process, the employees are more likely to adopt it too [21].
Research suggests that it is essential that these changes are designed with taking the employees' wellbeing into account, and if possible, made step by step instead of in one radical change [22]. It is also important to motivate the employees to be involved. If a behavior starts from a user and not from a constraint, he's more likely to adopt it
[19,22]. This can be done by proposing incentives to adopt the new process, for example, promotions or bonuses. Moreover, some research shows that some employees are motivated when doing meaningful jobs, with a positive impact on society
[13].
METHODS & RESULTS
In this section, I will present the methods used in this thesis. I divided the process into three parts. First, the research phase during which I gathered data about the two companies this thesis focuses on and defined guidelines to conciliate sustainability with the companies needs. Second, the design phase, in which I designed and developed a prototype implementing these guidelines. Finally, the test phase includes the usability tests I conducted with this prototype and the target end-users to test the pertinence of the guidelines.
Presentation of the companies
Avanade
Avanade is an Accenture and Microsoft joint venture. It's a large consulting company employing more than 30k people in more than 20 countries. It wants to decrease its offices' carbon footprint as well as increase its employee wellbeing. To combine these two goals, it decided to rely on its employees and to empower them. It didn't impose strict rules but instead installed IoT sensors that
monitor the office parameters, such as temperatures, noisiness, air pollution, etc. The Avanade building in Paris is divided into four areas. Each one has different parameters from the others. By showing all these parameters, it hoped that employees would naturally adopt sustainable behavior, such as moving in a colder area instead of turning on the air conditioner or turning off the light in the unused spaces.
This strategy was unsuccessful for many reasons. First of all, many users were not aware of this system, thus weren't using it. Moreover, the area they use in the office is mostly determined by habits. The users were not thinking about where they should go but went to the place they were used to. Moreover, colleagues working on a project were often seated next to each other and didn't want to move, because being separated would make working together more difficult. Thus, to make employees move, it is necessary to make them think and not rely on their habits as well as being able to convince all colleagues working on the same project at once. It would be interesting to see how an increase in communication would affect this situation and how it could affect new employees who don't have formed habits yet.
However, even if it had work, it is unclear if they would be motivated enough, or if their behavior would stand the passing of time. Moreover, it's also unclear whether or not the action taken would be enough to have a significant impact on the environment. Furthermore, this method limits users' action to only the one they can think of based on what they know about sustainability.
Company 2
Company 2 is a French construction company that employs more than 40k employees in more than 10 countries. It owns many factory buildings and quarries. To fight global warming and to improve its image, it decided to take measures to reduce its carbon footprint. It agreed on strict standards and changes it wanted to be implemented during the next decades.
This method ensures that actions decided by the leadership are done. However, defining these instructions is complex. It needs to take into account both the global state of the company as
well as each factories' context. Applying it is also complex, it is necessary to communicate the goals and actions and to monitor all the different sites efficiently. Their method consists of designing an overall plan for all the sites of a sector and making the employees apply it. The supervisors regularly check on the advancement and give new instructions on-site or by phone. This method does not take into account the context and individuality of each site, nor the day to day events, which can affect the feasibility of the actions. This leads to less than optimal plans.
CASE STUDY
In this section, I will explain how I used user-centered methods such as questionnaires and semi-structured interviews in order to understand these companies, their needs, ways of working, thinking, and methods of dealing with sustainability.
Questionnaire & Interviews
My questionnaire got 22 participants, 16 people from Avande and 6 for company 2, 18 employees and 4 people from leadership positions ( Appendix Table 1 & Questionnaire). The questionnaire consisted of 10 questions about the employees interest in sustainability, how they perceive what their company is doing, and how they feel about it. The semi-structured interviews approached the same topic but went deeper. I interviewed four people from Avanade and five people from Company 2, from leadership as well as from employee positions (Appendix Table 2).
Results
In both companies, the employee’s opinion on sustainability and on the impact the companies can have was pretty similar. All the participants considered sustainability as an essential topic and most of them thought companies, especially big ones, should take measures to become more sustainable. All of them also thought that companies could have a significant impact on the environment by changing their processes. However, most employees didn’t know the environmental impact of their company and were unsure about what they could do to have a more
significant impact. One employee stated “It’s nice to have all this information, but what am I supposed to do with it? It’s not as if I could do something”. Still, most of them claimed to be willing to change their ways of working and their behaviors to become more sustainable (Appendix Graph 1).
When asked about their opinions on the measures taken by their company, most of Avanade's employees were happy that their company took measures in favor of sustainability. However, a lot of them were not aware of all the measures taken or how they could themselves participate. After explaining Avanade's actions to them, most of them declared that they'd like to be involved and would be willing to adjust their behavior. However, a lot of them also claimed to be skeptical about the real impact of these measures. Most of them thought that more structural needs would be needed and were even willing to participate and propose ideas, if necessary.
On the other hand, the employees of Company 2 were aware of the company's sustainability policy and were confident in the impact that the measures could have on the environment. However, more than half of the interviewed employees didn't feel involved in the process and considered it as something they had to do. Moreover, some of them felt like they were forced to take measures that were not relevant to their context or might disturb their work without bringing actual improvements. Almost all of the interviewees declared to be unlikely to propose more ideas by themselves or to involve themselves more than necessary. While claiming to understand the feeling of the employees, the leadership declared that it is possible to take into account the global situation of the company and to choose the best possible actions only by using actions chosen by it (Appendix Graph 2).
This research confirmed that these two companies have radically different ways to approach sustainability, both with their advantages and disadvantages. However, it shows that despite the differences in context, employees’ opinions on sustainability seem quite similar (Appendix Graph 3). These results also highlight disagreement between employees and leadership. Company 2 leadership thought they needed to be the ones
making decisions since they have a global view. At the same time, employees found that this way of making decisions was not taking into account the context and specificities of their sites.
Guidelines
In this section, I will introduce a number of guidelines I made, which aims to support companies when designing apps that help them to conciliate sustainability with their needs. The guidelines were inspired by the most used model for persuasive design, the PSD model. I took the four principal elements listed in the PSD model: primary task support, dialogue support, credibility, and social support. However, my research led me to the identification of other critical elements that I added to these guidelines.
Communication
Communication must take place inside as well as outside the system to explain the system to the
users, the importance of sustainability and of and the actions they are encouraged to take.
Transparency
The users should be aware that they are being influenced. The system must be clear on its goals and inform the user of what it is trying to do.
Freedom
The users should be able to propose actions and to have some liberty on the action to be done. Guidance
It is important to make people understand what actions are preferable and are the most adapted in the global strategy of the business. This is especially important for the leadership who wants ways to monitor actions of the employees and decide which ones are the most important.
Some of the guidelines seem to contradict one another, for example, freedom, authority, and primary task support. The freedom guideline, mostly pushed by employees, recommends to let the employees free to decide how to do their jobs and to do the actions they consider the best. On the other hand, theguidance guideline, principally needed by the supervisors, who asked for more regulation and control over the employees' actions and for additional monitoring possibilities. Both of
these add complexity to the app, which contradicts the Primary Task Support guideline. This contradiction suggests that there are inconsistencies between the needs of the different stakeholders. Thus to build a system, it is necessary to make decisions and balance trade-offs and choose the methods best needed to a particular context.
Design
Company 2 wanted to build an app to help it to reduce its carbon footprint. It wished to reduce its emission by 30% by 2030. They defined a set of actions and calculated the impact they can have on their emissions. I decided to work with it to build this app while incorporating the findings from the literature review and my research.
To begin with, I organized brainstorming sessions with the stakeholders to understand their needs and the specific context of the business. By involving them from an early stage, I aimed to get a better understanding of their needs and opinions. Based on this information, I developed an interactive prototype with Adobe XD .
A complex context
Company 2 business is complex. It manages many construction sites all around the world. Each site is different, uses different methods, different machines, some are already sustainable, some are extremely polluting, some are small, some are big. Each site also has different budgets, projects, and context to take into account. Moreover, each country has different regulations, which make the situation even more complex.
The system
The point of this system is to allow the company to plan actions in time in order to attain its goal and reduce its site carbon footprint by 2030. In order to better take into account the context of each site, each site is configured individually. The app has two main features. Firstly, listing the sites and their characteristics and inventories and secondly helping to define the site’s action plan to reduce its carbon footprint.
Implementing the guidelines
Primary task support
In this case, sustainability is not only a modification or the employees current work, but an added work which piles on top of the rest. Thus, it is especially important to support the users, and to make this app as easy to use as possible.
To do so, the app was simplified as much as possible. The actions were designed to take as little steps as possible and only the relevant parts of the app were shown at a time. Indicators were added for the users to know exactly what they were doing and what were the next steps
Image 1 : Prototype screen : Inventory
Moreover similar functions and concepts were merged. For example, there were a lot of different types of factories with identical properties that were merged in the app.
Dialogue support
In order to encourage the user to take sustainable actions, the consequences of the actions taken, in terms of budget, energy, and carbon footprint were clearly shown.
Image 2 : Prototype screen : Action plan
The focus was put on the impact of the actions, showing the users the impact of their activities and the beneficial effects it created. Besides, to make it easier to understand, the saved amount of CO2 was compared to more conventional units. For example, "You saved the equivalent of 100km of cars" instead of just "You saved XXX tons of CO2"
Image 3 : Comparaison screen Credibility
To reinforce the trustworthiness of the app, I put some focus on making it look professional. It was clearly branded, the logo and colors of the company were put in evidence, and a message on the landing screen presenting the company as well as the goals it wanted to attain.
Social support
Due to the nature of work and its normativeness, users are more likely to follow the norm by gathering people with the same goals and making them follow some rules.
Communication
Communication canals were made to make the employees aware of the measures taken, and to make them able to communicate efficiently with their supervisor in case of issues.
Transparency
Transparency was essential. I wanted the situation to be clear and make sure the users know that the app is made to influence their behaviors. Thus the message inside the app, as well as the communication around it, clearly stated the app purpose.
Freedom & Guidance
No database recensing all the sites, and their characteristics existed. Thus, I decided to give the users more control and to let them input their inventories and the information relative to their site by themselves. They could also choose the actions to do amongst a list made by the company, plan 7
and simulate their actions and decide by themselves what the better course of action would be. By letting them have this freedom, it is possible to attain the goals without needing the company leadership to make a plan for each site. In order to still allow the supervisor to supervise the employee and to see if the company goals are respected, they could access a view of all the action plans of the employee they oversee and had to to validate the action plans defined by the employees.
Moreover, my researches suggested that when users are freer, they are also more likely to propose their ways to improve sustainability. To make use of that, and avoid stucking the user in a situation where no action would be possible or limit his initiatives, I added the possibility for users to create custom actions by themselves. They would enter the actions, its costs and impact on sustainability all by themselves.
Image 3 : Prototype screen : Custom action However, to keep all the plans coherent for the company, after each plan or customs action proposition, a supervisor has to validate it. This tradeoff reduces the users' freedom, but reassures the figure of authority and makes them accept more easily the new power given to the employees.
Test
In this part, I will explain how I confronted my guidelines with the complexity of the real-world by testing the prototype.
The test was conducted with five people who were employees as well as supervisors from Company 2 (Appendix Table 2), different from the one I interviewed and who never used similar apps
before. The participants were given a site and had to enter its inventory in the app and make an action plan for it. On top of that the supervisor adds to review entered action plans. This test was about one hour per participant. I used the "think aloud" protocol [23] as well as interviews to study the participants’ reactions and collect feedback. The participants found the system clear and believable. This allowed them to believe in the system and to be quickly efficient. Despite the overhead caused by their new sustainability responsibilities, the perceived effort was pretty low, especially when compared to the former method. While still raising some questions, the sustainability elements added were considered easy to use and to understand and didn't bother the users. However, some issues were raised. Most comments mentioned that constant verifications from supervisors was bothersome. Moreover, having all their actions checked provoked stress and uneasiness to some employees, who didn't feel any benefit from it. One participant said “It’s disturbing, it's like having someone behind me, monitoring everythings I do”. Lot of participants claimed that this might discourage them from proposing new actions and spending more time in the app.
Moreover, some of the users didn't feel concerned by the app because their work wasn't represented. The employees from the factories which were merged together in the app felt rejected because they couldn’t see their specific factories. Moreover, a user felt discouraged by the impact of its actions which seemed too low, and made him think that they were useless.
The feature to compare the saved CO2 with more common units wasn't well received. This feature was liked by the supervisor, who thought that the employees would need easier comparisons to be able to make choices. But the employees didn't like it. They found it useless, redundant with graphs and more difficult to compare and analyze. Results
These results suggest that applying the guidelines indeed leads to an increase in the persuasiveness and expected users' continuance. The new sustainability measures were well accepted by
users. Still, some points needed improvement. Despite the design following the guidelines, the qualities of the app, and the otherwise good feedback, a majority of the participants were not totally satisfied and didn't want to continue using it and to adopt it in their workflow. On the other hand, the leadership didn't face those issues with verification and was willing to continue using it. This might be due to an error in the guidelines definitions or implementations. To understand these points, I made some modifications to the prototype and did a new set of tests.
Redesign
Based on the precedent results, I understood that it was necessary to find a balance and have a better understanding between leadership and employees. Thus new brainstorming sessions and discussions were organized with the stakeholders. I decided to simplify the app and remove redundant information. The comparison to more user-friendly values was discarded. This also reduced the number of elements of the app, making it quicker to use and learn. The received feedbacks also lead to the apparition of a new guideline:
The acknowledgment
For people to be more involved, they needed to feel acknowledged by the app. If they feel rejected, they are unlikely to want to use it.Thus, I added all the different types of buildings and factories, despite their similar working, to represent the workers who were using them.
I also reduced the amount of validations needed. Instead of checking each action plan and customs actions, the employees were let free to create all the custom actions and to simulate different action plans. The supervisor only checked all the employees once every few months. This makes the flow of the app smoother and gives more flexibility to the users. This also implies more trust between employees and supervisors. But, since the first prototype was encouraging and showed the users motivation, efficiency, and proposed ideas, the leadership accepted this idea. In order to still be able to react in case of issues, I added a
comment system to allow quick communication if needed.
Image 5 : Prototype screen : Comment
I decided to focus less on the impact and more on the progress. Indeed, for an industry that pollutes a lot, it will take a lot of time before having a positive impact, while insisting on progress shows results quicker.
Second test
The participants and methods used were the same as the one from the first test session. I observed more engagement than with the last design. The change reduced the expected efforts and increased the expected user continuance of the employees while not affecting much the leadership. The reduction of the needed validations was very appreciated and led to an increase in expected user continuance and of the number of action plans and custom actions propositions. A participant said “ This time I really feel like I can try different things without wasting my time waiting for the validation of every single thing” The acknowledgement of all the different workers also increased their acceptance and will to use the app. The switch from focusing on the impact to focusing on the progress increased the user acceptance, and helped the users to get a better understanding of what they were doing.
DISCUSSION
This thesis explored how the PSD model can be applied in a real-world context when confronted with the complexity of workplace environments and sustainability. It suggested how user-centered design and persuasive design can lead to the
creations of guidelines that can be used in the development of persuasive systems.
Results
Substantial research has been done on persuasive design and how to influence human behavior. However, this study suggests that they can't always be applied due to the complexity of the real world. Indeed, the workplace environment and sustainability adds a whole new dimension of complexity and details to take into account. They might be technical as the physical constraint of the workplace, or social as the complexity of workplace and hierarchical relationship on the wide range of different opinions and feelings that people have about sustainability. For the app to be as effective as possible, it is crucial to tak e into account the context of the situation. Moreover, different stakeholders have different needs, and different views, which might be opposite. User-centered methods and quick iterations can allow companies to find the most appropriate solution.
Limitation
This study has several limitations. By doing a case study, I expected to be able to take into account the unique context of each case and to see how it impacts persuasive systems' efficiency. However, different companies have widely different workplaces and stands on sustainability, due to the limited number of companies studied, it is difficult to be sure whether or not this conclusion can be generalized or is specific to the studied companies. Another questionable point is the limited number of participants. More participants would have made the results more significant. More variety in the participants’' profiles would have made the information gained more representative of the company. Moreover, due to the small number of participants, the test was within-subject, which means that the same group of people did the two test sessions. This allowed me to have them compare the two situations but might lead to bias. Moreover, the study was short, for a system which studies the persuasiveness of a system and sustainability issues. Indeed, these topics can take time to evolve. A more prolonged study to see the evolution of behavior though time might be
needed. Furthermore, due to the covid situation, onsite tests were not possible, which limited the external validity of the study. This made us focus on the users' perceived impact of the system. In a real case, observed impact through time might be different.
Future Work
Future works might investigate how different kinds of workplaces and environments influence the creation of persuasive software for sustainability. It might also explore how the social and economical aspect of sustainability might be affected. Future works could also explore how generalizable these findings are. Longitudinal studies that study behavior though longer times, might be needed to see if the factors which influence persuasiveness and sustainability evolve through time and if the guidelines might need to evolve too.
CONCLUSION
This study explored how the PSD model can be applied in a real-world context when confronted with the complexity of workplace environments and sustainability. It investigated how the complexity of sustainability and workplaces, as well as the different and conflicting views and objectives of the stakeholders on sustainability, make the situation complex. This study suggests that even if guidelines are useful, they might not be usable in all contexts and might need to be adapted.
In order to find an optimal solution, it is necessary to find a balance between all the different issues and stakeholders. User-centered methods allowed is a way to do so. By involving the users, understanding them and iterating quickly, guidelines, and persuasive methods can be tailored to specific cases.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank Vasiliki Tsaknaki, who supervised me and guided me on this project as well as my examiner Anders Hedman for its advice. I would also like to thank Avanade and Company 2 for helping me during the whole process. I would also like to thank Xavier Rose, my partner, for his support during the entire thesis.
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Appendix
Company Gender Age Position Avanade M 20-30 Employee Avanade M 20-30 Employee Avanade M 30-40 Employee Avanade F 20-30 Employee Avanade F 20-30 Employee Avanade F 20-30 Employee Avanade M 30-40 Employee Avanade M 20-30 Employee Avanade M 20-30 Employee Avanade M 20-30 Employee Avanade M 30-40 Employee Avanade M 20-30 Employee Avanade M 30-40 Leadership Avanade M 40-50 Leadership Avanade M 30-40 Leadership Avanade F 30-40 Leadership Company 2 M 20-30 Employee Company 2 M 20-30 Employee Company 2 M 20-30 Employee Company 2 M 20-30 Employee Company 2 M 20-30 Employee Company 2 M 20-30 Leadership Table 1 : Demographic data of the pre-study questionnaire.
Gender Age Company Level M 30-40 Avanade Leadership F 30-40 Avanade Employee M 20-30 Avanade Employee M 20-30 Avanade Employee M 30-40 Company 2 Leadership F 30-40 Company 2 Leadership F 20-30 Company 2 Employee M 20-30 Company 2 Employee M 20-30 Company 2 Employee
Table 2 : Demographic data of the pre-study interview
Age Gender Level 20-30 M Employee 20-30 M Employee 20-30 M Employee 30-40 F Employee 30-40 M Leadership
Do you consider sustainability an important topic? Do you think it's your company's responsibility to take measures to become more sustainable? Do you believe change made by companies can have a significant impact on the environment? Do you know what measure your company has taken for sustainability?
Do you think your company is doing enough for sustainability?
How important do you think your company's environmental impact is?
Do you consider yourself knowledgeable about sustainability?
Would you be willing to change your behavior, to improve sustainability?
Are you scared that the measures taken by your company might affect you and your work in negative ways?
Would you be willing to participate and propose new ideas and measures to improve sustainability if you were given the change?
Questionnaire
Graph 1 : Avanade Questionnaire Result
Graph 3 : Total 2 Questionnaire results
