User Behavior and Technology Development: Shaping Sustainable Relations Between Consumers and Technologies

by Peter-Paul Verbeek (Editor), Adriaan Slob (Editor)

Overview

Environmental policy has long been determined by a dichotomy between technology and behavior. Some approaches stress the importance of technology and technological innovation, while others focus on behavioral change. Each approach has its limitations, however, since technology and behavior often appear so closely intertwined. Human behavior results not only from intentions and deliberate decisions, but also from its interaction with technological artifacts. In the area of traffic safety, for instance, people’s driving behavior is determined as much by curves, speed bumps and the power of their motors as by considerations of safety and responsibility. How can we best describe and understand these interactions between behavior and technology? What conceptual frameworks and empirical studies are available, and how can they be integrated? And how can we bring these interactions to bear on product design and policy making?

The book User Behavior and Technology Development explores these relationships between technology and behavior from an interdisciplinary perspective. This includes contributions from cognitive psychology, industrial design, public administration, marketing, sociology, ergonomics, science and technology studies, and philosophy. The book aims to create a conceptual basis for analyzing interactions between technology and behavior, and to provide insights that are relevant to technology design and environmental policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402044335
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	10/19/2006
Series:	Eco-Efficiency in Industry and Science , #20
Edition description:	2006
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	8.27(w) x 11.69(h) x 0.04(d)

About the Author

Peter-Paul Verbeek (1970) is associate professor of philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. He holds a M.Sc. in the Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society and a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Technology. He publishes on the social and cultural roles of technology, the morality of technological artifacts, and the ethics and philosophy of (industrial) design.

Table of Contents

Conceptual Frameworks for Analyzing Technology and Behavior.- Technology and user behavior.- Action facilitation and desired behavior.- Safety.- Technology and household activities.- Technology and behavior.- Acting artifacts.- Technology and behavior.- The social agency of technological artifacts.- Technology and users.- Technology, Behavior and Sociotechnical Practices.- Technology and behavior.- Sustainable technologies and everyday life.- Residential behavior in sustainable houses.- Making energy feedback work.- Technological innovations and the promotion of energy conservation.- Household energy consumption.- Marketing of technological products.- Diffusion of technological innovations.- Technological innovations and energy conservation.- Sustainable technology or sustainable users?.- Designing Technology-Behavior Interactions.- Planning behavior.- Expected behavior.- Designing ‘moralized’ products.- The scenario method to gain insight into user actions.- Using design orienting scenarios to analyze the interaction between technology, behavior and environment in the sushouse project.- Ict in everyday life.- User involvement in the development of sustainable product-service systems.- Eternally yours.- Designing technology-behavior interactions.- Implications for Policy.- Citizen-consumer roles in environmental management of large technological systems.- Modifying behavior by smart design.- Combining technical and behavioral change.- The practice of innovation.- Ethical aspects of behavior-steering technology.- A normative systems approach for managing technology and collective human action.- Shaping technology-behavior interactions.- Analyzing the relations between technologies and user behavior.