KOR

How can we bring mindfulness to home energy consumption?

With global warming becoming a dire problem, consumers are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint. In 2019, it was reported that residential space heating and cooling are estimated to account for 41% of energy used in US homes. The average American household will produce around 5,000 pounds of carbon emissions a year from heating and cooling.

Goal

The goal of this project was to design an app for parents and children that create positive behavioral changes and minimizes energy usage.

The target user

Parents and Children

Children are the future of our planet and it’s important for them to learn energy saving tools at a young age. By teaching children positive sustainable practices, they will incorporate them in their daily lives and continue them throughout their lifetime. 

Parent and child can simultaneously use the app since over half of children ages 0-8 have smartphones or tablets. For children that do not have electronic devices, the parents can operate the app for the child to monitor and reward them.

The app is designed to be friendly, easy to use, and playful for children while also being minimal enough for parents to use as well. 

User Research - Problems and Needs

After discussing with 3 different sets of parents, I looked into the concerns around their children’s usage of home appliances. The main concern was the child’s forgetfulness around turning their heater off.

Wireframing

I tested different methods of motivating and educating the child. By interviewing two children, I learned ways they wanted to be motivated and efficient methods of learning. The main concern was finding the balance between being helpful and overbearing. Also, keeping the child engaged through simple educational lessons and directions. I further developed the concept to be more minimal and with modest notifications.

Getting Started

Users create an account and can activate their device through a qr code that’s on the heater. They can add multiple devices for different rooms and users. 

After creating their account, they’re suggested optional goals and rewards they can create. Parents can input this based on the kids needs and interests.

Home Page

The home page displays the essential information, such as temperature and current energy used. For additional information, users can click on the different icons. 

These features are temperature control, usage, impact, goals, and rewards.

Temperature Control

The challenge for this feature was creating something a child could easily use and understand while also being graphically minimal for a parent as well. 

I used changing colors to indicate heating and cooling. Also, easily visible controls with understandable symbols.
Another useful feature was adding the time that Kor was on and displaying the outside and inside temperature.

Usage

Children and parents can view the kw used through a chart. The chart can be toggled to show daily, weekly, and monthly usage. This can then be translated to show CO2 emissions emitted.

Impact

 The user can view how many tons of C02 they’re emitting and whether they’re reaching their limit. They then have the ability to offset their emissions. 

Emissions can be offset by completing tasks that reduce their carbon footprint. Doing these activities give them points which can be traded in to decrease emissions.

Each activity provides a summary of how they are beneficial to the environment, educating the child and giving them more incentive to reduce energy usage.

Goals

Parents can choose goals for their child or make custom ones based on their own needs. This motivates the child and helps them clearly understand how much money and energy should be used.

Rewards

Custom rewards that parents created will be displayed at the top with a bar that shows how close they are to the reward. They can be edited from there by the parent. 

Badges are given to the child for good energy saving behavior and emissions offset.

More badges are released over time which keeps things new and exciting for the child. They can scroll to see all of their badges collected.

Building the physical model

During university in my industrial design program, I designed and built the physical model of KOR. The concept started as “discursive design” idea: design that is meant to provoke thought and communicate a statement. The heater was a globe of earth that in real time showed forest degradation, and CO2 emissions.  This “blue sky idea” was then simplified to make a more functional product but still kept elements of discursive design. 

The heater’s physical interface showed red dots that filled up the heater the more it was used. When KOR is completely red, it signals to the user that it should be turned off or lowered.

I wanted to graphically incorporate the metaphor of the heater being the earth heating up into the app’s design language.