Project Description and Goals

I am working with Professor Jennifer Mankoff at the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.  We are working on a project code named IM Power*, which is an interdisciplinary project that combines behavioral, environmental, and computer sciences.

Leaving computers on full power when not in use is a waste of energy, and yet it seems to be a common practice.  Our project is to design a chat bot that will monitor the idle time of an individual's instant messaging screen name and communicate with that screen name about the energy implications of leaving one's computer running (e.g. through carbon emissions estimates).  One of the goals is to examine the discrepancies between an individual's actual computer use and their perceived computer use.  We also hope to gain insight into the reasons people choose to leave their computers on when not in use.  Finally, the project will explore measures to encourage wiser computer power decisions through motivational messages provided by the bot.  This project is somewhat related to Professor Mankoff's Footprints project, which is an effort to use the internet to encourage environmentally friendly activities.

Phase I of our project is to create a bot to log the activity of a given screen name and pose questions about the user's perceived computer use.

Phase II will consist of analyzing the results from Phase I and deciding on effective messages to send to users to encourage energy saving power settings and practices.  It will include deployment of feedback mechanisms and analysis of those results.

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*ok so it's not a very cryptic code name... :P