Making Energy Matter: Soma Design for Ethical Relations in Energy Systems

Title of the Paper

Making Energy Matter: Soma Design for Ethical Relations in Energy Systems

Bibliographic Information

• Subject Area: Sustainable HCI, Ethical Design
• Keywords: Energy, Sustainability, Somaesthetics, Soma Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Energy Systems, Relational Ethics, Background Awareness

Research Background and Problem

• Problems and Challenges:

  • Current design and consumption paradigms (referred to as the "affluence paradigm") prioritize user needs, profit, and innovation while neglecting planetary boundaries.
  • Energy systems are often abstracted and hidden in the background in interaction design, lacking direct experiential engagement and user participation.
  • Cognitive and behavior change frameworks struggle to motivate long-term sustainable behaviors.
  • Sustainable behavior design often faces binary choices (e.g., saving vs. wasting), which can trigger eco-anxiety or place undue responsibility on individuals.

• Significance of the Problem:

  • Energy consumption is closely tied to climate change, necessitating ethical reflection on humans' roles within energy systems and their relationships with nature.
  • The limitations of current sustainability design approaches show that merely relying on information or behavioral interventions is insufficient to alter deeply ingrained consumption habits.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • The motivation lies in exploring new design methods that enable users to deeply perceive the materiality of energy and its ethical relationships.
  • Related work focuses on improving sustainable behavior through technological and design means, such as information visualization and energy feedback, but these methods lack depth in user experience or perception.

Solution

• Methods and Approaches:

  • A somaesthetic design approach is proposed, which uses first-person experiences and materialized relational interactions to re-examine ethical relationships in energy systems.
  • The study employs a Research through Design (RtD) methodology, modeling from the perspective of bodily perception and ethical interaction with energy.

• Innovations:

  • Soma design integrates bodily perception with cognitive experience, breaking traditional cognitive frameworks and embedding design into users' ethical practices in daily life.
  • From slow-walk experiments to aesthetic laboratories, the design emphasizes deep bodily experiences and material interactions with energy, rather than focusing solely on behavioral metrics or data feedback.

• Implementation Steps and Techniques:

  1. Autobiographical Design: The first author conducted long-term observation and documentation of their own energy interactions to explore the design space.
  2. Slow Walk Experiment: Participants engaged in slow-paced energy interaction activities in a kitchen setting, opening up perceptions of energy materiality.
  3. Aesthetic Labs: Techniques of defamiliarization were used to concretize the perception of energy elements such as heat and water, evoking cooperative and ethical awareness.
  4. Design Speculation: A conceptual model for redesigning faucets was proposed, guiding users to act more responsibly in high-pressure water systems.
  5. Reflective Analysis: New participants were invited to evaluate the ethical and practical aspects of the design prototypes, reflecting on user behavior and system interactions.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Achievements:

  • Reduced the abstraction of energy, enabling users to perceive the materiality of energy through deep interactions.
  • Introduced "preciousness" as a design concept to foster ethical care in users' interactions with energy systems.
  • Proposed a multi-relational ethical model, expanding energy relationships from individual to collective and systemic levels.

• Advantages and Evaluation Results:

  • Unlike existing solutions, the soma design approach inspired multi-layered modes of perception, including interactions between individuals, between individuals and materials, and between individuals and systems.
  • Participants demonstrated a clear tendency toward behavioral transformation in reflective and interaction design, such as more deliberate water usage.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations include the experimental nature of the design method, its focus on Western energy contexts, and the lack of consideration for groups with diverse abilities.
  • Future research is recommended to expand to global energy contexts and cultures, exploring more comprehensive ethical design pathways and optimizing somaesthetic design for diverse user groups.

Conclusion

This paper provides a new perspective on sustainable human-computer interaction through the practice of soma design, shifting traditional behavior-change design from data-driven to relational ethics-driven approaches. The research emphasizes the need for designers to deeply stimulate relationships between individuals and systems, highlighting the profound materiality of energy systems and the potential impact of ethical practices on the future. This work offers a strong complement to current sustainability design frameworks and advances the fields of technology and design toward more ethically meaningful directions.