Organizational Sustainability

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Organizational Sustainability

• Team Members 
• Andrew Gillespie, Bhavana Gupta, 
• John Horstman, Tongbo Huang, 
• Jared Pryor

Final Presentation
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Project Overview
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What is CLEAN AIR-COOL PLANET?

• Clean Air-Cool Planet (CACP) is the leading
  organization dedicated solely to finding and
  promoting solutions to global warming
• CACP partners with companies, campuses,
  communities and science centers to help reduce
  their carbon emissions.
• CACP helps their partners, constituents, regional
  opinion leaders, and stakeholders understand the
  impacts of global warming and its best available
  solutions, through comprehensive outreach efforts
  celebrating commitment, innovation, and success
  in climate action.
• CACP proposes and recommends the implementation
  of effective policy solutions aimed at reducing
  greenhouse gas emissions at the state, regional
  and national levels.

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What is the CAMPUS CARBON CALCULATOR?

• The Campus Carbon Calculator (CCC) measures
  campus emissions and can be used to help create a
  climate action plan, analyzing viable long-term
  strategies to reduce a campuss carbon footprint
• Provided as a free resource as a part of CACP's
  Campus Climate Action Toolkit.
• Currently in use at more than 1200 campuses
  across the country, the calculator is designed to
  be compatible with any type of school from a
  technical community college to a 4-year
  university.
• The Calculator is also the tool of record for
  most of the 600 signatories to the American
  Colleges and University Presidents Climate
  Commitment, a voluntary agreement to move toward
  campus climate neutrality.

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The CAMPUS CARBON CALCULATOR tool takes the form
of a Macro-enabled Excel Spreadsheet
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The CAMPUS CARBON CALCULATOR tool takes the form
of a Macro-enabled Excel Spreadsheet
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The CAMPUS CARBON CALCULATOR tool takes the form
of a Macro-enabled Excel Spreadsheet
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The CAMPUS CARBON CALCULATOR tool takes the form
of a Macro-enabled Excel Spreadsheet
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Our Faculty Advisors Jen Mankoff
Professor Mankoff and her colleagues developed
StepGreen, a website that promotes changes in
energy consumption through personalized
information in the form of social influences
(e.g., persuasion by peers) and competitive
interaction with other groups who are similarly
trying to save energy.  StepGreen.org encourages
and assists individuals in reducing their
ecological footprints, and/or the amount of
natural resources he/she uses. 
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Our Faculty Advisors H. Scott Matthews
Professor Matthews is the Research Director of
the Green Design Institute and a faculty member
in the Departments of Civil and Environmental
Engineering and Engineering Public Policy at
CMU.  His research and consulting interests are
in the areas of using the Internet to facilitate
the environmental life cycle assessment of
products and processes, carbon footprinting,
green supply chain management, and the energy and
environmental impacts of transport, and
information infrastructure.
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Focus For Campus Carbon Calculator Tool

• We came up with 3 Foci, decided on 1
• Understand issues with the existing carbon
  footprint calculation tool
• Understand the spreadsheet user's work flow and
  identify potential issues
• Understand how data in the existing tool relates
  to data in other footprint calculators

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Our Use of HCI Methods
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Focus Setting / Affinity Diagram

• Our group found the development of our foci to be
  a challenge because of our unfamiliarity with the
  domain.
• Our focus switched back and forth between
  different applications a couple of times.
• After speaking with CMU's Facilities Management
  Services (FMS) environmental coordinator, we
  understood more about the CCC work flow and we
  were able to narrow down our potential CI
  targets.
• We used feedback from our stakeholders to help
  narrow down our focus, and confirm that we were
  on the right track.

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Contextual Inquiry (CI)

• CI reveals the work flow across multiple users.
• Since each university had a different process for
  filling out the CCC Tool, we saw some very
  different data points from our CI users.
• All of our CIs were performed on users that had
  already completed the CCC tool for the most
  recent year, so we had to study their workflow
  retrospectively.
• The CI participants provided a good retrospective
  account because they had easy access to their
  copies of the CCC and to their appropriate notes.
  
• We dealt with a couple of CI false alarms where
  we scheduled a CI with users who did not actually
  use the CCC tool, and this wasnt properly
  communicated to us.

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Contextual Design

• Consolidation led to potential design ideas.
• It was good that we didnt decide to do every
  single model, but chose to only create the models
  which were a good fit for our project and for the
  CIs that we had performed.
• The CD process required more time and effort than
  our group initially anticipated in order to reach
  a consensus that everyone was comfortable with.
• Creating models from the data of the CIs we
  conducted early on provided us with a blueprint
  of what to do and of what not to do for our
  subsequent CIs.
• Consolidation revealed a large number of
  breakdowns directly related to the CCC tool.

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Personas

• The Persona roles we developed were obvious after
  looking at the consolidated flow model.
• Our stakeholders expressed excitement about the
  idea of creating good representations of the
  typical users of the Campus Carbon Calculator.
• Persona 1 Gladys, FMS Supervisor
• Persona 2 Arturo, Data Entry Worker Grad
  Student

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Think-Alouds

• Decided to perform a Think-Aloud on our current
  tool in order to collect more data for our design
  solutions.
• Found some breakdowns that didn't come up in CIs.
  
• Identified problems that didnt come up in CIs
• Enabled us to watch how long it can take a user
  to scroll through the tabs and columns, even when
  the user is familiar with the data to enter
• Observed how frequently users have to zoom in
  out
• The vastness of the CCC Tool created long search
  times for particular goals

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CogTool (KLM)

• Built models of the tasks evaluated in the
  think-alouds.
• This was the fastest method we performed all
  semester.  It only took about 2-3 hours to build
  the models calculate the estimated task
  completion time.
• There was much less overhead involved since we
  didn't have to hunt down volunteer test subjects
  or work around their schedules.
• Models provided quantitative measures of
  performance times.

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 Design Solutions
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Rationale 
Design solution 

• Collapsible columns that hide unnecessary
  columns.
• Displaying columns that are useful for the user
  and hiding other columns that aren't.

• The user has to do a lot of horizontal scrolling
  within each tab  
• Evidence Consolidated Flow Model, UARs from
  think-alouds, CogTool models

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Design solution 

• Improved navigation between spreadsheet sections
   
• A drop down menu would suffice in letting the
  user see all the different tab options.
• The sidebar frame design that shows the tab
  options vertically, perhaps collapsible categories
  would work.

Rationale 

• User cant remember all of the available tabs,
  and it takes a long time to scroll among them.
   In the tabbing, the graphical output data is
  given the same hierarchical status as the input
  spreadsheet fields.
• Evidence  Consolidated Flow Model

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Design solution 

• System remembers the zoom percent last entered by
  the user and keeps it until user changes it.
• Find a heuristic or research about optimal zoom
  levels and use that to set the default zoom.

Rationale 

• User is always zooming in and zooming out.
• Evidence UARs from think-alouds

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Rationale 
Design solution 

• Add a conversion feature, perhaps a warning or
  label to remind the user to add in the correct
  conversion
• Allow the user to choose the units when inputting
  data or when displaying output data.

• Input output units arent always consistent
  with what the user expects. 
• Evidence UARs for think-alouds, Consolidated
  Flow Model, Consolidated Cultural Model.

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Design solution 

• Add a place to record assumptions within the
  system, such as an additional spreadsheet tab
  (that is unless it's redesigned without tabs).

Rationale 

• Need to write assumptions / procedures when
  filling out the form in a separate document than
  the main CACP Carbon Calculator.
• Evidence Consolidated Sequence Model,
  Consolidated Flow Model

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Design solution

• Give the tabs/sections better names for
  example, change the name of G_TotalEmissions" to
  "Graph_TotalEmissions or Graph Total Carbon
  Emissions.

Rationale 

• Tab (section) names arent clear. 
• Evidence UARs from think-alouds

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Design solution

• Better facilities for user support
• Online forum that connects CCC users, and gives
  them a chance to ask questions and receive
  answers from the community (would be nice if the
  site could be monitored by the Clean Air Cool
  Planet organization).
• Include a directory of common or experienced
  users of the spreadsheet that are available to
  contact.
• Certain sections of the User Guide pdf could link
  directly to specific threads within the Community
  Forum so that a confused User could receive a
  larger range of related advice whenever they
  encounter problems
• Add direct links from the CACP Spreadsheet to the
  appropriate section in the User Guide (Add
  bookmarks to the User Guide, add an index).

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continued... Design solution 

• Create online training modules which could
  provide basic training over the main
  functionality of the CACP Spreadsheet, and
  answers to common questions.

Rationale 

• Users have trouble finding an easy way to get
  help for their questions 
• Evidence Consolidated Flow Model.

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Design solution 

• Add a reference section to the user guide
  containing general guidelines for estimating
  data.  Reference material for estimate guidelines
  can be collected from previous CACP tool users.

 Rationale

• The user has to perform a lot of estimation on
  the data that he/she has collected.
• Evidence Consolidated Flow Model

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Design solution 

• Add a reference section in the user guide to
  explain the data entry cells that users commonly
  find confusing.

 Rationale

• The user guide does not include guide to direct
  data to appropriate cell.
• Evidence UARs from think-alouds/Consolidated
  Flow Model

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Conclusions and Recommendations
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Conclusions

• Choose your CI models effectively.
•  
• For our group, physical models provided very
  little value, so we didn't spend time building
  them.
• This freed up more time to spend on critical
  models (flow, cultural, sequence).

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Conclusions

• Allocate plenty of time for consolidation and
  visioning.
•  
• Consolidation ended up taking us about 3 times as
  long as we expected.
• Consolidation meetings were eating into our
  remaining schedule.
• There was a lot of debate about how the models
  should be consolidated.

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Conclusions

• Well-designed think-aloud tasks lead to better
  data.
•  
• When reviewing the think-aloud recordings, we
  found ourselves questioning whether or not our
  task details were too specific.

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Conclusions

• Over communicate with your test subjects.
•  
• There's no such thing as scheduling too far in
  advance.
• Make absolutely sure you're speaking with the
  right person.
• Call or email to confirm your upcoming meetings.
• Line up extra test subjects if possible.

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Questions??
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Appendix
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Consolidated Cultural Model
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Consolidated Flow Model
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Consolidated Sequence Model

• Trigger Project to create a report showing
  carbon footprint of university.
• Intent Fill out CACP Tool for a particular
  fiscal year and generate report.
• Read CACP Tool User Manual to gain overall
  understanding.
• Optionally check through the CACP Spreadsheet
  (such as the coefficients that are being used for
  calculations) to check for accuracy and that they
  make sense
• (BREAKDOWN) How can you verify that coefficients
  which seem weird are truly correct?
• Determine what data needs to be requested.
• Contact Facilities Management Senior
  Administrators.
• Get approval for project from Senior
  Administrator.
• Senior Administrator for FM reaches out to Senior
  Officials of other Department. (Permission isnt
  needed to communicate to contacts outside of the
  University)
• Perform loop with each appropriate contact
• Communicate a data request to appropriate
  resources
• Wait until contact/resource responds with desired
  data.
• If the contact hasnt responded, send more
  emails eventually escalate to Senior
  Administrator if no one is responding (for
  contacts outside of the university, there may not
  be an appropriate procedure to communicate with
  the contacts boss).
• (BREAKDOWN) Have to wait on others for data..

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Consolidated Sequence Model (Cont)

• Analyze data to determine if additional
  calculations need to be performed.
• If extra calculations are needed. Use extra
  spreadsheet to perform calculations.
• Go to the Internet (or appropriate resources) to
  retrieve additional info needed for calculations.
• Trigger Data not found.
• Determine if assumptions need to be made for the
  data.
• If so, make sure to record these assumptions
  (they will be added to the final report.)
• (BREAKDOWN) Some data requires user to make
  assumptions in order to complete the spreadsheet.
• Determine if the data is appropriate to use for
  the report
• If not, dont include it into the spreadsheet.
• (BREAKDOWN) Data given to me isnt
  appropriate/doesnt make sense.
• Enter in the finalized version of the data.
• Enter data into the spreadsheet from other
  sources (University Factbook, utility bills)
• Transcribe information from the CACP spreadsheet
  to the report.
• Supervisor presents final report to Facilities
  Management and to senior university officials.

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continued... Persona Gladys
Gladys is the Sustainability Manager at Penn
State. She is 42 years old and is passionate
about environment and sustainable living. She did
her undergard in Environmental Sciences and is a
LEED certified associate. She is married and has
one daughter. In her free time she likes to spend
time with her daughter, tend her garden and take
care of their pet dog, Snoopy. Her favorite color
is blue. 
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Persona Gladys

• Having been at Penn State for 5.5 years, she
  extends the same enthusiasm for environment in
  her workplace. She has great relationships with
  her co-workers and they all enjoy the challenge
  of making Penn State carbon neutral and getting
  more a lil more budget from the college board.
  Her office is in the basement of the Facilities
  building and this is her only complain with the
  workplace. She cannot keep plants in her office,
  as there is no sunlight in the basement. 
• She uses the CACP tool because it is free and
  some of her colleagues at other colleges
  recommended it. Every year, it is her job to
  present he final carbon print report to the
  college board. Arturo was hired by Gladys to work
  on the CACP and for the more hands-on work of the
  tool. Also, she does not like working with Excel
  sheets and would rather collect data and
  supervise Arturo.

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Personas Arturo
Arthuro is a grad student at Penn State in Civil
Environmental Engg. Dept. He is 24 and did his
undergrad in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech.
He is fascinated by bridges and that was one of
the reasons he decided to study in proximity to
Pittsburgh. Arthuro took up the part time job
with Gladys to earn some extra money. He has been
working on it since Aug 2010 and is now confident
about using it. He finds it hard to take out time
for the tool consistently every week since his
classes started, and he is worried Gladys may not
be happy about that.
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CogTool (KLM)
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CogTool (KLM)
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CogTool (KLM)
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CogTool (KLM)