Information Design Considerations for Effective Communication of Sustainability Metrics

As the world becomes more aware of the dangers posed by climate change, there is a growing conversation around the carbon footprint and how we reduce our impact. Everything we do contributes to our carbon footprint, from the food we eat to the planes we fly, but emissions are invisible, abstract, and ambiguous. It is quite difficult to conceptualize what a metric ton of carbon-dioxide is or means for the environment. Digital eco-feedback solutions have emerged to help individuals quantify and visualize their footprint. These robust data-driven interfaces display metrics on electricity usage or carbon emissions to users to help track goals and identify strategic improvements. But why is it that designers assume people are able to know how to understand the spikes and dips in a time-based line graph and draw the connection to their heating and air-conditioning or an inefficient dryer in the laundry room? This thesis analyzes eleven of these platforms including carbon calculators, emissions trackers, smart meters, and smart thermostats, which all share the goals of quantifying, communicating, and helping users reduce their consumption and emissions. The work looks through the collective lenses of information design, behavior science, and sustainability to evaluate the platforms with a framework of five clarities created from secondary research: purpose, truth, mappings, affordance, and legibility. Input from key informants sheds light on further challenges faced in the design development process and the discipline as a whole. The output is a list of considerations for designers and product teams to build more effective communication tools to convey the information around emissions data such that future visualizations result in a clear understanding of the subject matter, empowering users to take action.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Sternberg, Zachary

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Pontis, Sheila

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151323

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/151323