Energy Babble

This is the story of a set of computational devices called Energy Babbles. The product of a collaboration between designers and STS researchers, Energy Babbles are like automated talk radios obsessed with energy. Synthesised voices, punctuated by occasional jingles, recount energy policy announcements, remarks about energy conservation made on social media, information about current energy demand and production, and comments entered by other Babble users.

Developed for members of UK community groups working to promote sustainable energy practices, the Energy Babbles were designed to reflect the complex situations they navigate, to provide information and encourage communication, and to help shed light on their engagements with energy policy and practice. This book tells the story of the Babbles from a mix of design and STS perspectives, suggesting how design may benefit from the perspectives of STS, and how STS may take an interventionist, design-led approach to the study of emerging technological issues.

Andy is a Senior Lecturer and co-director of the Interaction Research Studio. As a founding member of the studio alongside Bill Gaver, he has over the past decade played a key role in the research activities of the studio. Andy's research interests focus on practice-based design research with a particular emphasis on the design, fabrication and long-term in-situ deployment of computational devices for varied user-groups. He has overseen the design and build of all of the studio's prototypes and is currently developing new methods of batch-production for volume field studies.

Bill Gaver is Professor of Design and co-director of the Interaction Research Studio at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research on design-led methodologies and innovative technologies for everyday life led him to develop an internationally recognised studio bringing the skills of designers together with expertise in ubiquitous computing and sociology. With the Studio, he has developed approaches to design ranging from Cultural Probes to the use of documentary film to help assess people's experience with designs, and pursued conceptual work on topics such as ambiguity, interpretation and design-led research. These innovations have been driven by the design work that is at the heart of the Studio's work, which centres around the production of highly-finished prototypes that have been deployed for long-term field trials and exhibited internationally at venues such as the V&A Museum, Tate Britain, and New York's MOMA. He has published over 70 articles (h-index of 44) and is an elected member of the CHI Academy.

Tobie has worked as a design researcher since 2003, with the Interaction Research Studio and as a Helen Hamlyn Research Associate. He is committed to taking a collaborative and speculative approach to design, and in providing empirical and critical accounts of that practice. His research projects have been supported by Philips Design, Intel and France Telecom, and funded by UK and EU funding councils. He is Programme Leader of MA Interaction Design, which offers a research-based approach to interaction design. Previously Tobie has lectured at the Royal College of Art, Central St. Martins, and the Industrial Design faculty at Technical University Eindhoven. He led two EPSRC funded public engagement projects, collaborating with Nikki Stott and Ian Thompson at the Maxillofacial unit at Kings College London to deliver a project called Biojewellery, and took a two-year visiting researcher role with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College to support the Material Beliefs project. His designs have been exhibited internationally, including shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Design Triennial in Beijing. Tobie's PhD thesis provided an empirical analysis of Material Beliefs, where speculative design and public engagement with science and technology become mixed up, and he is able to supervise PhD students dealing with complimentary topics.