Persuasive System Design for Climate Change Awareness

We have been experiencing warmer years than before especially during the last decade, which has raised concerns among researchers of all discipline about climate change. In our attempt to raise awareness and promote positive behavior change to mitigate climate change, we designed an intervention consisting of three design paradigms that are not commonly used together in the area of climate change: data visualization, interactive narrative, and persuasive system design. By conducting a user study with 100 participants, followed by interview of 20 participants, we found evidence showing that all the persuasive strategies implemented in our system were significantly persuasive. Moreover, our qualitative analysis provided insight on the effectiveness of the strategies, such as, Customization, Simulation, Social Learning, Social Comparison and Cooperation in increasing likeness towards the system, and motivating positive behavior change about climate change by providing a sense of togetherness among the participants. Based on our findings, we offer design recommendations for implementing persuasive strategies in such systems to increase their effectiveness.