Behaviour change wheel driven normative feedback in a serious game for energy conservation

Existing energy conservation interventions provide feedback in the form of graphs and numbers. There is a need for more persuasive and theoretically informed interventions in order to bring about a greater conservation effect. Using the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) systematic method of intervention design, we designed a mobile phone game which uses normative feedback as a behaviour change technique to promote energy conservation. This paper describes an application of the BCW method to the energy domain and presents the design of Energy Explorer - a serious game with the purpose of promoting positive energy conservation behaviours in the home - that incorporates meaningful reference groups, average player community score, and normative leaderboards.