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Talks and Poster Presentations (with Proceedings-Entry):

K. Kappel, T. Grechenig:
"show-me: water consumption at a glance to promote water conservation in the shower";
Talk: The Fourth International Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE 2009), Claremont, California; 2009-04-26 - 2009-04-29; in: "Proceedings of the 4th international Conference on Persuasive Technology", ACM, New York (2009), ISBN: 978-1-60558-376-1; 1 - 6.



English abstract:
Water is a scarce resource worldwide. Yet, we have many
opportunities to conserve it. One particular opportunity for water
conservation is the shower, because depending on the shower
head and shower habits, an individual can save many liters of
fresh water each day. Feedback proved to be an effective method
to promote sustainable behavior. Therefore, in this paper we
suggest to promote water conservation by providing feedback in
form of an ambient display that can easily be integrated in current
shower types. We built a prototype to study the potential of such a
feedback device. These shower water meter (show-me) display
the amount of water, that is used during one shower in form of
LEDs assembled on a stick. Thus, an increasing water level is
visualized. The user study revealed two groups. The subjects who
considered themselves as ecologically conscious changed their
behavior and turned the water down or off while soaping. Also,
they are willing to pursue this behavior. Other subjects who did
not have the goal to act more sustainable, were surprised about
their water consumption and tried to reduce it. However, after the
removal of the show-me device they did not maintain their
behavior and fell back into their previous habit.

Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.