Our technical culture is characterized by the development of increasingly complex artifacts. In this article, we introduce low-techs (sometimes termed "appropriate technologies"), which are alternative technologies designed to use fewer resources, target priority needs, and aim for a positive social and environmental impact. We describe their relevance for user experience researchers and practitioners interested in tackling environmental crises, and we discuss what actions can be conducted to improve low-techs' design and dissemination. Finally, from a survey of 396 participants, we derived 14 general user experience problems for low-techs to priority needs to derive necessary functionality, strike the right balance between empowerment and assistance, pay attention to non-functional features, facilitate discoverability, make artifacts and operation transparent, develop users' technical knowledge and skills, and compensate increased material loads and deficits. Practitioners can use these design principles to guide their development of low-techs.

The transition to a cleaner and greener energy production requires storing the energy produced from renewable energy sources. Hydrogen is an promising vector for storing the surplus energy from RES for use at a later time. The present study uses a discrete choice experiment and a mixed logit model to analyse consumer preferences for hypothetical hydrogen-based energy storage systems. This is the first study considering the behavior of households vis-à-vis hydrogen as a new energy carrier at home. The results show a preference for power-to-gas-to-power over power-to-gas systems, as well as strong preferences for greater energy self-sufficiency. Consumers prefer management by consumer collectives over private companies and are indifferent concerning the location of the systems in relation to their homes. Respondents who consume only electricity prefer a power-togas-to-power system whereas as respondents who also consume gas are indifferent.

Future thinking (FT) is the cognitive ability that enables humans to mentally imagine and pre-experience future events. Despite a sharp increase in basic research on future thinking in the last decade, we note the lack of transfer to Human Factors and Ergonomics (HF&E), although the field is increasingly concerned by future artefacts and although theory building on future-oriented HF&E has begun (e.g. prospective ergonomics). This article gives an overview of key findings regarding future thinking, namely i) underlying cognitive mechanisms, ii) functions and obstacles, iii) common descriptors of future thinking, iv) recommendations as to the possible improvement of future thinking during user research and, v) methods for the assessment of future thinking abilities. This synthesis can support HF&E practitioners in fine-tuning their future-oriented methods.

With the growing emergence of ergonomic intervention aiming at designing future artefacts, needs analysis is extending to the anticipation of future needs.Both precursory users and experts are known for their deep knowledge of the studied field.In this study, we conducted 36 needs anticipation interviews with ordinary users, precursory users and experts, in order to determine the contribution of each profile to the identification of future needs.The lexical and manual analysis of the interviews shows that the precursory users' speech is the most valuable in terms of both richness and novelty.The discourse of the experts is also richer and more original than that of the ordinary users and differs from that of the precursory users: professional-based for the experts and experiencebased for the precursory users.We therefore recommend the inclusion of both experts and precursory users in the need's analysis and anticipation phase.

Ergonomics has largely developed with industrialization and the concern to produce machines adapted to the work situations of the humans who use them. Since the 1970s, these machines have become digital machines, thus ergonomics has been increasingly devoted to high-tech products and services. What can contemporary ergonomics do to accompany the development of low-techs and improve their usability/user experience?

As ergonomics is confronted with future-oriented design projects, ergonomists must investigate how design could create novel and adapted ideas. In often ill-defined contexts, prospective ergonomics proposes to rely on methods and knowledge related to creativity, to foster the design process. In this paper, we introduce the prospective persona method, which is the implementation of the persona method applied to individuals who experience uses or artefacts that are identified as being precursory. The objective of this persona is to improve constraints management by adding the description of needs little known to designers. The study presented in this paper aims to compare the quality of ideation during a creativity task using ordinary persona, prospective persona or no persona. Our results show an effect of prospective persona on creativity. Prospective persona allows for a higher number of new ideas than ordinary persona and is the source of more feasible ideas the non-use of persona. We therefore recommend the use of prospective persona in future-oriented creativity design phase.

The energy transition is a major societal issue to which hydrogen energy can make an important contribution. If the technical aspects of hydrogen energy seem paramount, it is also important to focus on the end users of these future systems. Indeed, users play an important role in the success of energy systems: they may not accept it, they may not use it as intended. But not only, users can also be a source of innovation. Thus, it is possible to mobilize different approaches, which if they are all legitimate, do not have the same efficiency. In this systematic review of the literature, which combines lexical analysis and data analysis of 152 publications, we identify the approaches implemented to take into account users in Hydrogen Energy Systems. Our results indicate that final users are mostly perceived as a barrier to the deployment of Hydrogen Energy Systems, or as a parameter to be assessed rather than as a resource for the design. Researches have mainly the aim of improving technology adoption. Since Hydrogen Energy Systems are emerging, we recommend focusing studies on upstream user research aimed at stimulating and enhancing technologies and systems design. We also recommend increasing the share of study which focus on the case of hydrogen energy stationary applications and buildings.

Ergotact introduces the possibility of including force-based rehabilitation activities of the upper limb of post-stroke survivors. These activities are integrated into a dedicated game which is deployed on a tabletop. The patient interacts in the game with a tangible object which has to be moved, rotated, tightened/untightened and lifted according to the gameplay. The surface of the object is equipped with a matrix of force sensors which allows to introduce force-based activities into the game; for the purpose of the game, the object also includes an accelerometer and a gyroscope. The paper presents the concept and first feedbacks from therapists.

As preoccupation for climate change is of growing significance and call for disruptive innovation [20], Hydrogen Energy Technologies (HET) have been steeply identified as a potential key factor to address the energy transition [6]. Whereas public acceptance is recognized to be of great importance – and even equal to the technology – in the success of energy projects [9], HET’ acceptance is questionable. This study aims (a) to portray the works that have focused on the acceptance of HET, (b) to highlight the limits of acceptance-based approaches, (c) to point out the benefits of adopting a Needs’ anticipation approach rather than an acceptance-based approach in human technology relationship issues, (d) to attest its relevance in the context of HET and (e) to propose a Needs’ anticipation approach related to a need seeker innovation strategy. Our findings indicate that a large majority of the studies followed a techno-centered approach of acceptance. We propose a paradigm shift regarding human technology relationship approach by making the dichotomy between traditional acceptance-based approach and Needs anticipation approach. While the first is techno-centered and aim to push for the use of a technology by modulating deployment conditions, the second is human-centered and has the ambition to shape the technology to the user’s future needs and requirements. Thereby, given the high stakes and the future-oriented nature related to HET issues, we support the idea that a Needs’ anticipation approach must be applied in designing HET to ensure future uses.