Description:
There is a resurgence of interest in mental models due to advances in our understanding of how they can be used to help design and due to the development of practical methods to elicit them. This book brings both areas together with a focus on reducing domestic energy consumption. The book focuses on how mental models can be applied in design to bring out behaviour change resulting in increased achievement of home heating goals (reduced waste and improved comfort). This book also offers a method to extract and apply mental models to interface design. The approach enables mental models to be applied across domains when behaviour change was sought, and is validated as a useful design method.
Review Quotes:
"This is a valuable piece of work for most, if not all, interface designers practicing user-centered design in the industry. The mental models methodology and approach discussed in the book benefits not only on reduction of energy consumption in domestic energy systems, but also helps readers in understanding the behavior and behavioral changes of consumers in other design domains. I would believe a wide range of researchers and practitioners would be interested in the practical examples, insights and guidance provided by the two experienced authors in this book."
-- Alan HS Chan, City University of Hong Kong
"When Stanton and colleagues address a topic, it's important to pay attention to what they have to say. I recently heard a famous inventor talk about the difference between unintended, unanticipated, and perverse consequences of innovation. This book on mental models for home energy systems gives me a great working example of this complex aspect of sociotechnical impacts of technology innovation."
-- Barrett Caldwell, Purdue University, Indiana, USA