Designing for transparent intentions in AI powered energy systems

Abstract

The development of intelligent systems has created enormous opportunities to improve and change human lives. These systems are heavily reliant and driven by data and algorithms to achieve optimal user experiences for myriad users. However, these data-driven products/services are multi-dimensional and multifaceted and do not necessarily have the same meaning and value to all its users. Different users may have different intentions of use for the system. Each user could also define different goals that they may want to achieve using the system. Additionally, what goals the organization has for the users might not align with what the end users what for themselves. These differences in intentions are called as multi-intentionality. In such scenarios, traditional design enforces the idea of simplifying interfaces that frame or dictate certain intentions of use for people. But this can be considered a sensitive issue because the end-users are unaware of these other potentially conflicting intentions. This creates an increase in tension between intelligent systems and the needs of end-users but also a sense of mistrust. Hence, there is a need to create a sense of legibility to the users on the behavior of these systems and the other intentions of use in order to enable trust. In this project, a way to help users sustainably consume energy is explored through the lens of multi-intentionality. The main aim of the research is to explore the meaning of intentions and multi-intentionality in the given context. Following this, the goal becomes to concretely represent the multi-intentionality into something more tangible for the users and applicable to the real-world context. The initial research resulted in identifying intention profiles for users, the intentionality gap, and the need to capture intentions that is required in order to bring more legibility and transparency to a system that the user might interact with. Through multiple iterations, a digital interface is created that through various communication data, data visualizations and recommendation designs tries to bridge the gap of intentionality between the two stakeholders (user and energy provider). By capturing intentions, portraying the tradeoffs of user choices, showcasing their energy use, presenting their energy profile with respect to their goals, designing transparent recommendations an effective proposal to bridge the gap between intentions is made. The designs were made with concrete thinking on how it could be applied to a real world problem and were validated through tests with users.