People leave the lights and T.V. on in hotel rooms all the time. There are no economic consequences for leaving them on like there are in your house so why not?
Hotels sometimes leave messages on a card in the bathroom or on the nightstand to appeal to a person’s desire to be more environmentally friendly. These reminders meet with limited success. However, there is a much easier way to get guests at a hotel to never leave the lights or TV on when they are not present. You can have 100% compliance, no negative effects, and even some positive effects are thrown in. How? Imagine a receptacle that holds your room key next to the front door. When the room key is inserted into the respectable, the outlets in the room are hot. When the key is removed, you disconnect the power to the entire room, except for the clock and perhaps the heater/AC unit, saving the hotel energy and preventing you from forgetting your key.
Better choice architecture can be used to solve all kinds of problems. Choice architecture is a term used to describe the different ways in which choices can be presented to consumers and the impact that this presentation has on a consumer’s decision-making. In another example, a small restaurant had a problem with male patrons missing the toilet so they glued a small ceramic fly to the inside of the bowl that male patrons could not help but aim at.
How can you use the concept of choice architecture to drive customers down the path of your choosing?
