Touchy Tap: A Slow Technology for Shared Reflections on Water Consumption

Turning on a water tap in one’s home is an easy, simple and typically solitary interaction that masks the huge amounts of resources and efforts behind the collection, processing, and delivery of fresh water. There are many design and design research examples that aim to raise environmental awareness by drawing attention to consumption of domestic utilities. However, less common are designs that aim to provoke reflection on sustainable behaviors through an effortful and shared interaction. In this paper we present ‘Touchy Tap’ - a multi-touch kitchen faucet prototype in the form of a dynamically illuminated 2-m wavy tube that requires control by two people. A slow interaction was designed with the intention to evoke reflections in use on issues related to water consumption. A preliminary evaluation indicates the potential of this ‘slow technology’ approach to highlight water consumption issues, even though the ambiguity of such an unconventional interface may negatively impact on overall user experiences.