A week without plastic bags: Creating games and interactive products for environmental awareness

Abstract

Interactive technologies and digital games can be valuable tools in raising awareness and persuading people to adopt more environmental friendly behaviour. Appropriate methods and paradigms for designing such systems and successfully blending the ‘fun’ element with the messages to be communicated are still under research. In this paper, we investigate the benefits and drawbacks of using games and playful interactive technologies for influencing people’s behaviour towards the environment, through a series projects developed and publicly presented during a campaign for reducing the use of plastic bags. We present the design process and methodology adopted, the resulting projects, and a number of observations and preliminary results based on their public use.