H2Show

Design Problem: The 2009 CHI student design problem. The goal is to create a design that encourages the consumption of local rather than global resources.

Teammates: Burr Walker, Joe Yelochan, Susan Coleman-Morse

Concept: To help domestic users reduce water consumption while increasing their awareness of water as a local resource within their community.

To prepare for the CHI design problem, we took notes on local resource use in the Bloomington community, then created an affinity diagram of our notes. I worked with Emily Allen, Lula Albar and Drew McKinney for this portion of the project, and then joined Burr, Joe and Susan for the concept generation phase.

We sketched many design concepts around the theme of community water awareness, some conservative, some deliberately unusual and provocative, before discussing our ideas and settling on our final design.

The H2Show is a small, ambient display that lets domestic water consumers know how well they are meeting water use goals. Each household has an estimated average use based on the size of the household. The H2Show display begins each day showing a full water droplet, and the water in the droplet gradually decreases as the household uses water. Once the household has reached their recommended water use for the day, the display appears empty. In response to further water use, the droplet refills with orange as a "warning." At any time, someone can touch the display to find out how many gallons of water the household is under or over their daily target.

To encourage awareness of the community's water resources, the outer edge of the H2Show glows with colors that indicate how well the community as a whole is reaching its water conservation goals. If the community is doing well, the outer edge will glow a bright, deep blue. As water use increases beyond conservation goals, the edge turns a paler blue, eventually shading into yellow and then orange.