Nudging Towards Sustainable Computing : Evaluating Nudging Strategies and User Trade-Offs for Sustainable Computing in AI Interfaces

Sammanfattning

The increase of energy and water consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) services, like GPT, holds significant sustainability challenges. To overcome these challenges user-centred strategies to reduce the environmental impact without compromising the user experience are necessary. This study investigates how visual nudges influence users’ decision making in AI interfaces and explores the trade-offs users make between processing time, output quality and environmental impact. A between-subjects online experiment (N = 93) using mock-up AI interface scenarios and a choice-based conjoint design was conducted. Participants selected among processing options, generating a specific result of a prompt, with one group exposed to a visual nudge and the other not. The options to choose varied in processing time, output quality and environmental impact. Results show that the visual nudge increases the selection of environment friendlier options, particularly trading off output quality rather than processing time. The study also found evidence of a compromise effect, where users frequently chose moderate options to balance sustainability with usability. Environmental attitudes, measured via the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, significantly predicted sustainable choices, though they did not moderate the nudge’s effect. These findings contribute to sustainable human-computer interaction (HCI) by demonstrating that visual nudges can support greener computing behaviours, especially when aligned with acceptable performance trade-offs.