Abstract
Results from a full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a product contain complex information about its constituent components and materials; subsequent manufacturing processes, emissions, and potential environmental impacts. Understanding such LCA information in detail can help designers make robust decisions related to reducing environmental impacts of the product through appropriate choice of components, materials and processes during Eco-Design. A key resource for LCA information in a Full LCA tool (also called Detailed LCA, and henceforth referred to as LCA tool) is its databases. However, LCA tools have often been criticised for not being useful to designers. Among the various underlying causes, the issues with visual representation of LCA information and usability of LCA tools have gained minimal research attention. In order to address these issues, we adopt an information visualization approach. Information visualization is an interdisciplinary research area focused on computer supported development of visual representations of complex information in order to render it interpretable by humans. In this paper, we discuss the potential of using information visualization techniques as an interface for LCA tools for educating designers about the likely environmental impact of their design decisions. We also discuss potential benefits of using a novel interface developed by us using interactive, multi-view based visualization techniques in understanding context sensitivity of LCA information. The proposed interface is part of an ongoing research effort for developing user friendly interactive visual representations for LCA. Ultimately, the proposed interface is intended to enhance designers’ capabilities for developing environmentally benign product life cycles.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Kota, S., Chakrabarti, A.: Understanding the needs of designers for developing environmentally friendly products. In: International Conference on Research into Design (ICoRD ’09) (2009)
Millet, D., Bistagnino, L., Lanzavecchia, C., Camous, R., Poldma, T.: Does the potential of the use of LCA match the design team needs? J. Clean. Prod. 15(4), 335–346 (2007)
Bhander, G.S., Hauschild, M., McAloone, T.: Implementing life cycle assessment in product development. Environ. Prog. 22(4), 255–267 (2003)
Kota, S.: An interactive support for developing environment friendly product life cycles. PhD thesis (2009)
Goedkoop, M., et al.: The Eco-indicator 98 explained. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 3(6), 352–360 (1998)
Rio, M., Reyes, T., Roucoules, L.: A framework for ecodesign: an interface. Int. J. Eng. 121–126 (2011)
Uchil, P., Chakrabarti, A.: Communicating life cycle assessment results to design decision makers: need for an information visualization approach. In: DS 75-5 Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED13) (2013)
Ullman, D.G.: Toward the ideal mechanical engineering design support system. Res. Eng. Des. 13(2), 55–64 (2002)
Card, S.K., Mackinlay, J.D., Shneiderman, B. (eds.): Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think. Morgan Kaufmann, Los Altos (1999)
Norman, D.A.: The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, London (2002)
Srinivasan,V., Chakrabarti, A.: An integrated model of designing. J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng. 10(3), 031013 (2010)
Otto, H.E., Mueller, K.G., Kimura, F.: Efficient information visualization in LCA. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 8(4), 183–189 (2003)
Börner, K., Chen, C., Boyack, K.W.: Visualizing knowledge domains. Annu. Rev. Inf. Sci. Technol. 37(1), 179–255 (2003)
Otto, H.E., Mueller, K.G., Kimura, F.: Efficient information visualization in LCA: approach and examples. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 8(5), 259–265 (2003)
Otto, H.E., Mueller, K.G., Kimura, F.: Efficient information visualization in LCA: application and practice. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 9(1), 2–12 (2004)
Otto, H.E., Mueller, K.G., Kimura, F.: Interactive visualization for the comparative analysis of life cycles in complex product design. In: ds 31 Proceedings of ICED 03, the 14th International Conference on Engineering Design, Stockholm (2003)
Ragnerstam, E.: Enhanced interactivity in charts: visualization of life cycle assessment results. Skolan för datavetenskap och kommunikation, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, Stockholm (2010)
Norris, G.A., Yost, P.: A transparent, interactive software environment for communicating life-cycle assessment results: an application to residential windows. J. Ind. Ecol. 5(4), 15–28 (2001)
Gloria, T., Saad, T., Breville, M., O’Connell, M.: Life-cycle assessment: a survey of current implementation. Environ. Qual. Manage. 4(3), 33–50 (1995)
Nielsen, J.: Usability Engineering. Elsevier, Amsterdam (1994)
Wang Baldonado, M.Q., Woodruff, A., Kuchinsky, A.: Guidelines for using multiple views in information visualization. In: Proceedings of the Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, pp. 110–119. ACM (2000)
Ainsworth, S., Van Labeke, N.: Using a multi-representational design framework to develop and evaluate a dynamic simulation environment. In: International Workshop on Dynamic Visualizations and Learning, Tubingen, Germany (2002)
North, C., Shneiderman, B.: A Taxonomy of Multiple Window Coordinations. University of Maryland. Technical Report #CS-TR-3854 (1997)
Spence, R., Press, A.: Information visualization (2000)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer India
About this paper
Cite this paper
Uchil, P., Chakrabarti, A. (2015). An Interface Between Life Cycle Assessment and Design. In: Chakrabarti, A. (eds) ICoRD’15 – Research into Design Across Boundaries Volume 2. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 35. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2229-3_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2229-3_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-2228-6
Online ISBN: 978-81-322-2229-3
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)