This research evaluates 148 mobile apps for sustainable waste management with a view to identifying all the socially-oriented persuasive strategies used and how they are implemented to promote sustainable environmental behaviors. The results show that the apps employed a total of 71social support strategies, distributed as follows: social learning (4), social comparison (8), normative influence (6), social facilitation (40), cooperation (9) and recognition (4). In addition, waste collection, sorting, recycling, awareness creation, and general waste management were some of the focus behaviors that the sustainable mobile apps supported. Contribution Statement. This paper contributes to research on ways of tailoring sociallyoriented persuasive strategies in sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) to promote a clean and sustainable environment. It also contributes to research on improving the effectiveness of persuasive systems for sustainability in encouraging users to perform target behaviors.
Studies shows that persuasive apps for behavior change encourage individual and communal actions in various sustainability domains like water, energy, mobility, and waste mgt [2, 6, 9, 10, 16, 17]. The findings from recent studies suggests that amongst these sustainability application domains, persuasive technology (PT) interventions to improve sustainable waste management behaviors are gaining traction [4, 8]. However, research into tailoring socially-oriented PT strategies for sustainable waste management in particular and environmental sustainability in general, is just getting underway. Berkovsky et al. [3] opines that tailoring persuasive strategies has a “huge untapped potential to maximize the impact of persuasive applications”.
Therefore this paper examines how persuasive technologies for sustainability otherwise referred to as sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) can be tailored to improve their effectiveness in encouraging users to adopt pro-environmental behaviors. We achieve this by evaluating 148 mobile apps (in the sustainable waste management domain) to identify the socially-oriented persuasive strategies (Fogg [5] and Oinas-Kukkonen [13]) employed in the design and how they are implemented to promote a clean and healthy environment. The results from our study show that cumulatively, 71strategies were employed. Specifically, social learning, social comparison, normative influence, social facilitation, cooperation and recognition were the socially-oriented persuasive strategies implemented in the mobile apps. In addition, waste disposal, collection, sorting, recycling, and general waste management were some of the
focus behaviors that the sustainable apps supported. We also discussed the implications for operationalizing socially-oriented persuasive strategies in developing PT for sustainability. This study addresses the following research questions: 1) what social support strategies were implemented in mobile apps for waste management? 2) How can we adapt and implement these strategies in future SBCIs for environmental sustainability to improve their effectiveness.
To answer our questions, we searched and downloaded apps on the Apps Store and Google Play that align with our research objectives using various criteria such as purpose, language, availability of demo, etc. Apps that appeared in both places were counted as one (See Fig. 1). Also, we coded the apps to uncover the socially-oriented strategies employed and how they were implemented based on the Persuasive System Design (PSD) framework described by research [13]. We chose this framework because it is a widely used model for deconstructing persuasive systems to identify strategies that are effective at abetting users to accomplish desired tasks and target behaviors.
Total number of apps retrieved n=244
iOS App store n=81 Google Play store n=163
Review: Apps included in review n=148 Duplicates removed n=17
Same app in iOS App store and Google play store Apps excluded with reasons n=79 App not functioning n=17
Cannot login n=28 Target behavior not inline n=14
App not in English n=2 Removed from store n=18
The findings from our study uncover that amongst the 148 mobile apps evaluated, a total of seventy-one (71) socially-oriented strategies from the social support category of the persuasive System Design (PSD) framework [13] were implemented (see figure 2 below). They are distributed as follows: social learning (4), social comparison (8), normative influence (6), social facilitation (40), cooperation (9) and recognition (4). In addition, waste collection, sorting, recycling, awareness creation, and general waste management were some of the focus behaviors that the sustainable mobile apps supported (see figure 3 below).
Social support strategies in apps 50 sp40 p a30 f o20 r eb10 m0 u N
40
Plastic WM ise Data collection r og Waste collection tea Biomedical WM /sc DIY Projects u co Game FRegional waste disposal
comparison
Social Support strategies 4
Our findings show that in general, socially-oriented strategies are effective at promoting sustainable and pro-environmental behaviors. In contrast to passive participation, they are purposely designed to stimulate active participation of users to achieve communal objectives [15]. These findings and many other related results are discussed in detail in separate papers [7][16].
Specifically, the Social Facilitation strategy provide means to detect other users who are performing target behaviors[11, 13]. It is implemented through chat features, forums and event suggestions on regional waste management apps (see Fig 3), in which every user could see what others are saying, doing or planned to do. The implication for design is that developers of sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) for environmental sustainability should focus on incorporating social facilitation features that allow users to recognize other users performing the same behaviors. This way the app will be more engaging and persuasive.
The Social Learning strategy provides means for users to see the outcome of other user’s
behaviors. It is implemented in the form of activity posts from other users which can be liked,
shared or marked favorite; this is similar to what is obtainable in social media applications. In
addition, new users could also look up the comments from other users and get an understanding
of what to expect from a system. This is consistent with findings from
The Social Comparison strategy offer opportunity for users to compare their performances
with other users. Although according to
The Normative Influence strategy allows users to share their issues, thoughts, emotions with others to find support [11–13]. They were implemented via the “invite friends” feature and social walls that encourage people to share activities with other users on the platform. Only one app implemented it via the creation of virtual groups based on target goals. The implication for the design of SBCIs for environmental sustainability is that providing opportunities for users and groups to interact amongst themselves and feel norm will increase engagement and inspire them to adopt communally beneficial and sustainable behaviors.
The Recognition strategy shows publicly available ratings for garbage service providers, a wall of fame to display exceptional performers in reducing food waste, public leaderboard and display names to all users when the user starts using the app. These findings are significant and agree with research [11, 13] because by providing public recognition to exceptional performers, other users could be motivated to perform target behaviors. The implication for the design of SBCIs for sustainability is that integrating features which offer public recognition to users and groups will be effective in encouraging pro-environmental behaviors amongst them. Such features may include a public display of praised and/or awarded user/group which is published on a conspicuous location on the app window. Success stories of individuals and groups who have successfully performed target behaviors could also be published as a means of recognizing their efforts and inspiring other users/groups to perform similar target behaviors. 4
Sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) appear to promote sustainable behaviors in environmental domains such as waste management examined in this paper. In general, our results show that amongst other things, social facilitation strategy emerged as the most widely used; n=40 (significantly higher than other socially-oriented persuasive strategies), whereas social comparison and recognition were the least employed; n=4. They were mostly used to motivate, influence, and assist potential users/groups to embrace new and communally helpful attitudes and behaviors that will benefit them and their society. This implies that tailoring relevant socially-oriented persuasive strategies in sustainable behavior change interventions (SBCIs) may be effective in encouraging users to perform target behaviors. It also suggest that the conscious and sustained application of these strategies will potentially result to a change in the behavior and attitudes of users and groups, which are essential to the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as it concerns environmental sustainability (such as climate change), the health and wellbeing of the people. 15.