Manchester Digital Development Agency

Background

Manchester Digital Development Agency leads a Europe Union initiative called DEHEMS – Digital Environment Home Energy Management - looking at how technology can improve domestic energy efficiency. The project uses a "Living Lab" concept, which means working with real users in five cities: Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and two cities in Bulgaria to test and improve the initiative.

Our Interventions

Infrastruct contributed to the qualitative research phase of the project. We facilitated two focus groups with Living Lab users, to review their experience and later analyse their experience with the home energy monitoring equipment. The sessions explored a number of areas for the project’s participants from offline motivations to influencing behaviour change.

Outcome

Insights from Manchester residents were collected, providing the project team with valuable information on the users experiences with the home energy monitoring equipment and the practicality
of the system they were testing online.

Transcripts from the focus groups were provided to MDDA’s academic partners, which will be used to inform the research and evaluation of the project.

Fact File:
Service:	Facilitation
Client:	MDDA / MCC
Location:	Manchester
Service Provided:	Focus Groups

" From our first meeting, it was clear to see the Infrastruct facilitator was an informed and highly professional individual – making my job all the more easier. Given the complex nature of this R&D project and the range of technical issues, it was important that we had someone who could put people at ease and develop a genuine rapport quickly.
The output was two highly successful project focus groups, which provided us with real user insights and highly valued information for the project’s ongoing development. All in all, a great job. ”

Thanks. Pukul Rana, Digital Development at MDDA.