User Experience in the Age of Sustainability

User Experience in the Age of Sustainability focuses on the economic, sociological and environmental movement in business to make all products including digital ones more sustainable. Not only are businesses finding a significant ROI from these choices, customers are demanding this responsible behaviour. The author looks at user experience practice through the lens of sustainability whether it be a smart phone, service – based subscription solutions or sustainable packaging to expose the ways in which user researchers and designers can begin to connect to the sustainability not merely as a theoretical. This book has a practical take on the matter providing a framework along with case studies and personal stories from doing this work successfully. Both hardware and software design are covered.

• Learn about the fundamentals of sustainability and how it can change the future of user experience professionals
• Learn how to integrate sustainability into designs with a solid framework using user research methodology, techniques, and purposeful metrics
• Find out how to integrate sustainability frameworks into the software and product development cycles
• Find out how sustainability applies to mobile and digital products with discussions on user messaging, dematerialization, and efficient design
• See how companies have made it work with case studies

Interaction, product, commercial, industrial and web designers; product managers

Preface

Biography

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Sustainability, User Experience, and Design

Introduction

Sustainability and User Experience

Sustainability Strategy Through the Design Lens

Sustainability and Businesses

The Impact on Companies

Greenwashing, Customer Perception, and the User Experience

Carbon Footprints

Signs, Symbols, and Visual Ratings of the Eco Age

Sustainable Design Ethics

Wrapping Up

In the Next Chapter

Chapter 2. Approaches to A Sustainable User Experience

Introduction

Approaches to A Sustainable User Experience Design Practice

Other Frameworks Worth Noting

Dow Jones Sustainability Index

Wrapping Up

In the Next Chapter

Chapter 3. Product Life Cycle and Sustainable User Experience

Introduction

Sustainable User Experience: Phases and Factors

Factors of Sustainability

Thoughts about Ethnography, User Experience, and Sustainability

Wrapping Up

In the Next Chapter

Chapter 4. Pulling it All Together

Introduction

Emerging Role of User Experience in the Sustainable Design Process

The Users’ Perception and Product Experience

The User, the Research, and the Findings

Businesses, Trends, and Sustainability Strategies

Pulling Together Traditional Tools and New Ideas

Life Cycles: Connecting Design, Development, and Sustainability

A Proposed Framework

Keeping Track: Sustainability Reporting

Connecting the User Experience Dots

From Findings to Data and Presentation

From Findings to User Interface Design

Bottom-Line Impact: Selling the Sustainable User Experience

Thoughts on Product Functionality and User Experience

Sustainability Design and the Challenge Ahead

What Does It Mean to User Experience and Design Practitioners?

Wrapping Up

In the Next Chapter

Chapter 5. Usable and Sustainable

Introduction

Sustainability and Efficiency, Learnability, Effectiveness, and Satisfaction

Sustainability and Accessibility

“The User Is Always Right” and Sustainability

The Changing User

User Perception in the Context of User Research

Green Consumers to Product Users

The Special Case of Visual and Interaction Design

Case Studies in Sustainability

Wrapping Up

General Resources

Sustainability Books for Designers and Researchers

Sustainability Frameworks

Reference

Index