There's an art to visual communication for voluntary behaviour change.

The Energywise site is a sub-site of EECA which is focussed on supporting New Zealanders to make behaviour change around their energy use and transportation.

The audience is pretty diverse - it is aimed at all New Zealanders, and has special resources for small businesses, building design, and personal travel.

The information on the site is very comprehensive, and some of the concepts around energy can be pretty technical - but the site has been designed to be warm and invited and user friendly. It clarifies where our energy is going, and offers up alternatives that are tailored to individual needs.

The Energy calculator enables users to caluculate which household appliances are responsible for using the most electricity, and offers solutions which will reduce both their consumption and ultimately their power bill.

The user comes away with a checklist of solutions that they have chosen for themselves. These are grouped into free, low investment, or investment - to account for different budgets. It turns out that many of the free options (e.g switching off your charger and appliances when they are not in use) saves tremendous amounts of energy, and money. Its a win win, and we like those!

Voluntary behaviour change is when individuals make choices for personal reward without a top-down mechanism, like a regulation of any sort, or a feeling of external compulsion.

Users will have arrived at the energywise site for a range of reasons, because they have decided to make a change so that he or she will improve their personal life in some way. Some examples are:

• Arriving at a point where the negative effects of an existing activity reach a certain level of intolerance (e.g their energy bills are a strain on their budget)
• Realising for the first time that ‘it is possible for me, as an individual, to change’
• Hearing of someone else who has changed – particularly someone who is trusted, respected or perceived to have similar values
• Experiencing a ‘change moment’ (e.g. new job, new home, new partner, choosing to change goals or beliefs for example - they have a growing awareness about the effects of their lifestyle on climate change)
• Feeling that a change is appropriate because it is fashionable

Then, when a decision to change is made, actual behaviour change is more likely if there are a number of options for change – improvement of lifestyle, or behaviour that is more congruent with values, they are likely to be sustainable.

The Energywise calculator interaction fits in seamlessly with the behaviour change model - where a person has identified by arriving at the energy calculator that there is something that they want to change about their life, and the checklist supports them in choosing behavior change that is congruent with their lifestyle.

They are supported with affirmations about the benefits of their choices, so that they will be able to make the association with the action (e.g putting a timer on the towel rail) and the change (reduced energy bill) which will reinforce the behaviour change, making it more sustainable.

Source of Voluntary Behaviour Change references:
Understanding Voluntary Travel Behaviour Change (56kb PDF)- Elizabeth Ampt