A WIZARD-OF-OZ EXPERIMENT TO DEMONSTRATE WATER REDUCTION AND USER TRAINING WITH AN 'AUTONOMOUS' FAUCET

摘要

Resource-conserving products and commercial smart products abound in the market, but the intersection of the two is largely unexplored from the human-centered-design community. Research has shown that people (users) have different cognitive styles that influence their methods of approaching challenges and how they interpret the world. Utilizing this knowledge of cognitive styles, energy conserving products could (1) reduce resource consumption of its users and (2) increase user satisfaction with interacting with those products. Passive products-such as a flow-limiting showerhead-do not seek to change the user behavior and solely change the behavior of the product to conserve water. In this work, we design and test an "active smart" product to see if it can change users through product interaction. A custom faucet was designed and built to conduct an experiment with the Wizard of Oz (WoZ) technique of remotely operating a device to create the impression of autonomy/smartness. Participants were asked to wash multiple sets of dishes to test if: (1) participants use less water when washing dishes with a smart faucet and (2) participants remember this behavior change and use less water in a alter interaction with a normal faucet. Results confirmed the hypotheses and showed that those interacting with the faucet reduced their consumption by 26.5% during WoZ treatment and, importantly, 10.9% while washing after interacting with the WoZ treatment. Limitations include the implementation of the smart algorithm and the willingness-to-pay for a smart faucet in the home. This study demonstrates that smart products can conserve resources and train for further conservation even when the user is not using the smart product.