Designing persuasive technologies for societal benefit: a persuasive technology for fighting electricity theft in Kampala, Uganda

Abstract

Electricity theft is a major challenge for electricity utilities world over, not sparing Umeme, Uganda. Although, the utility invests heavily into electricity theft reduction measures, some of these measures are frequently breached and progress is slow. These electricity theft reduction efforts can be aided by persuasive technologies.

Persuasive technologies are a promising mechanism for attitude and behaviour change. They are being developed to handle a plethora of challenges ranging from health, safety, financial management, to energy conservation. However, while a lot of attention has gone into developing these technologies, little has been given to the theoretical work of developing persuasive technology design frameworks. Existing frameworks have limitations that make it difficult to utilize them in solving societal problems. The aim of this research, therefore, was to propose a persuasive design framework for developing persuasive technologies for societal benefit focusing on electricity theft reduction in Kampala, Uganda, as a case study. Hevner’s design science research methodology, was employed in an action research approach to modify Fogg’s eight step process, one of the existing persuasive technology design frameworks. As input and justification for the research, we studied electricity theft in Kampala and Cape Town using survey questionnaire among electricity consumers and interviews with electricity utility staff. The study found that despite using split prepaid meter, electricity theft still prevails in Cape Town. The study in Kampala revealed that 68% of electricity consumers were not willing to participate in fighting electricity theft. This justified the need for a persuasive technology intervention. A literature review of persuasive technologies for societal benefit revealed that Fogg’s eight steps is the best framework to use, though it lacked guidelines on how to propose requirements. It was modified using design theory resulting into the Design Theory-Fogg’s Eight Step Process (DT-FESP). It was used to propose requirements and persuasive techniques for a mobile Android application to increase willingness to participate in fighting electricity theft called, “Faayo” (available at www.faayo.net). The requirements upon which the application was built where validated through; a) interviews, b) survey questionnaires, c) field studies, and d) laboratory studies. Participants were; a) Umeme staff, b) psychology experts, and c) electricity consumers. Overall, 84.6 % of requirements were found to be potentially persuasive. The overall mean for all requirements was 3.9 (using a Likert scale of 1 for strongly disagree, 3 for neutral and 5 for strongly agree). This validated the DT-FESP framework used to propose them. The research demonstrated the role and feasibility of persuasive technologies in reducing electricity theft and recommended that Umeme includes persuasive technologies in their electricity theft mitigation strategies. It also proposed a design framework for developing persuasive technologies for electricity theft which is a benefit to society.