Development of a practical evaluation for cookstove usability

• Published in: Energy for sustainable development 2019-02, Vol.48, p.154-163
• Main Authors: Moses, Nicholas D., Pakravan, Mohammad H., MacCarty, Nordica A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cookstove testing; Ethnography; Interdisciplinary; User preference
• ISSN: 0973-0826
• DOI: 10.1016/j.esd.2018.12.003

While improved cookstoves have been designed and distributed for decades with the goal of addressing the human health and environmental issues caused by traditional biomass cooking, many have not achieved the impact intended. One of the main reasons for this shortcoming is that engineers tend to focus on technical attributes of cookstove designs, such as improved fuel and combustion efficiency, but neglect usability. If a stove design does not meet a cook's needs and preferences, however, the stove will likely be used only as a supplement to a traditional stove, or not used at all. To help close this gap, a testing protocol for cookstove usability was created. The development process and resulting protocol are described in this article. The proposed protocol is based on established usability practices from fields such as software and consumer product design, as well as usability criteria taken from existing cookstove research and interviews with subject experts. Ethnographic testing methods from the field of anthropology have also been incorporated to make the protocol more appropriate for cross-cultural applications, as well as adaptive to a wide range of testing scenarios. The protocol includes objective measurements and observation, as well as subjective survey and semi-structured interview questions. Usability criteria are generally assessed with paired Likert scale survey questions that elicit user perceptions of criteria, as well as the relative importance of each. These results are supplemented by interview results and objective measurements, wherever possible, for comparison and to identify bias or uncertainty in the results. This protocol may be useful to stove designers as a way to better understand users and validate designs, to implementers as a way to assist with the selection of the most appropriate stove for a given project, and to researchers as a tool to assess cookstoves and cookstove programs. •The creation of a proposed cookstove usability testing protocol is discussed.•Different cookstove design priorities for practitioners and users are identified.•Tests are designed to assess how well a stove meets user needs in a given context.•Ethnographic methods are included to improve cross-cultural effectiveness.