Electricity Consumption amongst young people

in collaboration with Min Strøm

My thesis explored how young people understand their electricity consumption using a co-design approach. By combining interviews, self-reporting through the app Min Strøm, and a collaborative workshop, we engaged participants in the design process to uncover their habits and perspectives. This co-design method enabled us to explore an otherwise “invisible” topic, encouraging deeper reflection and new insights.

🗓️ January 2023 – July 2023 📍Copenhagen

In a time when energy awareness is becoming increasingly important, many existing tools and apps assume that young people are disinterested in this topic. To create more effective solutions in the future, it’s crucial to understand how young people actually perceive and manage their energy use.

The challenge was to research something that is often invisible and intangible in daily life—electricity consumption and the habits surrounding it. To address this, I adopted a qualitative approach inspired by design anthropology and co-design, using a range of design interventions to prompt new reflections and insights.

In order to do this we used co-design & design interventions

What is co-design?

Co-design is all about collaboration and giving users a say in the design process. Building on participatory design, it focuses on involving users—especially those who are usually left out—in shaping solutions that affect them. Two key principles are giving a voice and mutual learning. This means users and designers work together, with users sharing their real-world expertise, while designers provide the tools and methods to explore new ideas. Both sides learn from each other, making the design process more informed and user-centered.

In collaboration with eight participants, we conducted a six-week study that included interviews, self-reporting through the app Min Strøm, and a collaborative workshop. This approach allowed us to examine their everyday interactions with electricity, uncovering their understanding and practices. It became clear that using multiple methods—such as asking the same question in different ways or using a variety of materials—helps to evoke deeper and more nuanced reflections about the “invisible” aspects of electricity use.

Our research revealed that young people tend to navigate their electricity consumption using a mix of imaginaries and simple techniques. These allow them to grasp and manage their energy use in a way that feels relevant to their everyday lives. We framed these findings using three theoretical perspectives—blackbox, background relations, and folk theories—to offer different angles on how energy consumption can be understood as an invisible part of daily routines.

Finally, we identified three key opportunity spaces for future design work, focusing on creating solutions that resonate with young people’s ways of understanding and managing electricity consumption, while also raising awareness about energy use.

This project highlighted the importance of designing with empathy and using creative research methods to address less visible, but critical, aspects of user experience.