=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2629/13_poster_paraschivoiu.pdf
|storemode=property
|title=Designing a City Platform for Sustainable Behavior: Approaching a Multi-stakeholder Context and Initial Results
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2629/13_poster_paraschivoiu.pdf
|volume=Vol-2629
|authors=Irina Paraschivoiu,Thomas Layer-Wagner,Alexander Meschtscherjakov,Nina Möstegl,Petra Stabauer
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/persuasive/ParaschivoiuLMM20
}}
==Designing a City Platform for Sustainable Behavior: Approaching a Multi-stakeholder Context and Initial Results==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2629/13_poster_paraschivoiu.pdf
Designing a City Platform for Sustainable Behavior
Approaching a Multi-stakeholder Context and Initial Results
Irina Paraschivoiu1, 2, Thomas Layer-Wagner2, Alexander Meschtscherjakov1, Nina
Möstegl3, Petra Stabauer4
1Center for Human-Computer Interaction, University of Salzburg
Salzburg, Austria
{irina.paraschivoiu, alexander.meschtscherjakov}@sbg.ac.at
2 Polycular OG, Salzburg, Austria
thomas.layer-wagner@polycular.com
3Salzburg Institute for Urban and Regional Planning, Salzburg, Austria
Nina.mostegl@salzburg.gv.at
4 Salzburg Research, Salzburg, Austria
petra.stabauer@salzburgresearch.at
Abstract. Persuasive technology has proven effective in influencing individual
pro-environmental behavior. However, climate change is a systemic, complex
problem that involves an increasingly diverse set of stakeholders. Cities, in par-
ticular, can be effective demonstrators on designing from both an individual and
system change perspective. We report on our approach of a multi-stakeholder
context for persuasive design and on initial results for designing a city mobile
and web application for sustainable behavior, based on consultations with multi-
ple constituencies. Our early findings suggest ways of integrating persuasive de-
sign with other requirements for sustainability at a city scale, such as participa-
tion, information provision and engagement.
1 Background
Critiques of persuasive applications in the field of sustainability have pointed that ho-
listic approaches can lead to more climate benefits than targeting corrections in indi-
vidual behavior. Researchers are encouraged to take a more systemic approach [1, 4]
and to use participatory or user-centered design methods for persuasion [2, 3]. Design-
ing at a city scale offers the opportunity to apply these recommendations. On the one
hand, researchers can explore the dynamics of urban communities and local governance
to employ new approaches to sustainability persuasion in a complex system. On the
other, the application of user-centered techniques on a city scale can lead to reflections
on the suitability of such methods in complex environments. In this context, we report
on our work with the city of Salzburg, as part of the Smart City Masterplan. We detail
our approach within a multi-stakeholder environment for the development of a mobile
and web app for sustainability at a city scale. We also report on our preliminary results,
which show persuasion can be integrated with three other locally-relevant features,
namely information provision, participation and engagement.
Persuasive 2020, Adjunct proceedings of the 15th International conference on Persuasive
Technology. Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
2 Approaching a multi-stakeholder context
We envisioned a structured process for involving three types of constituencies: citizens,
local administration and local service providers in the field of sustainability. Our ap-
proach was composed of (a) mapping relevant stakeholders and (b) structuring the en-
gagement process for including all of the above-mentioned groups.
The mapping process was used to understand the stakeholders and the different
relationships between them. The process was iterative and took place in three steps:
target group definition, first stakeholder mapping and an extension of the stakeholder
map. In the initial target group definition, we identified the local administration, service
providers and citizens as the main categories of constituencies. In the second step, dig-
ital resources and partner brainstorming activities led to a mapping of 12 relevant stake-
holders. In a third step, references to other relevant entities were added alongside dif-
ferent activities conducted, leading to over 30 stakeholders engaged.
Structuring the needs and requirements was done in three stages. In each stage, a
mix of activities took place with the different stakeholders:
Goals and vision: initial consortium workshop (WS1);
Requirements: citizen surveys (S1, S2), a service provider workshop (SP1);
Design and specifications: a service provider workshop (SP2), a consortium
workshop (WS2), individual meetings (M1-3).
3 Platform features
We report on the platform features, following the “goals and vision” and the “require-
ments” phase. The results were structured in three clusters which we discuss below.
Information provision: Users are interested foremost in accessing infor-
mation about local sustainability-related services. Features to support this need
include the provision of content through on online magazine or blog format.
Services can also be included in a listing or map, allowing users to locate them
in their proximity or specific city neighborhoods. “Shortcuts” or “how to” con-
tent can offer users advice on behavioral changes and these can be provided in
a news update feature or through push notifications.
Participation: Users can be stimulated through behavioral strategies. Track-
ing and offering rewards based on the individuals’ behaviors entail the imple-
mentation of a token system. Tokens could also be exchanged for monetary or
in-kind rewards. Other initial suggestions for participation features are: mate-
rial incentives (vouchers, loyalty offers), gamification tools (sustainability
challenges, dashboards, immaterial incentives i.e. tokens, coins, achieve-
ments), tracking behavior (tracking biking on mobile and event attendance
through QR scan).
Engagement: Sustainable behavior of users is stimulated through an active
participation in a local community for sustainability. This supports the idea
3
that place attachment leads to more sustainable behavior or otherwise put in-
dividuals care more about their impact on their immediate environment, than
on a global or national scale. Citizens can therefore offer feedback to the local
administration or to services and participate in community challenges. A co-
operative, rather than competition strategy, is therefore preferred.
An internal prioritization was made starting with the above features, based on devel-
opment effort and impact. Some features were re-thought in order to avoid technical
implementation problems (i.e. tokens) or to improve usability and user experience.
4 Design concept
The design concept aimed to seamlessly integrate the different functionalities, thereby
increasing information, participation and engagement of users with respect to local sus-
tainability. We introduced a simple and shared game objective of collecting heartbeats
through sustainable actions. A shared goal helps create a community of players which
are engaged in a playful context, to try new services and offers.
Fig. 1. Initial screens for app design: gamified objective (left) and overview of activities (right).
The basic game mechanic is centred around collecting and spending heartbeats (see
Fig 1). As citizens increase the sustainability of their city through individual and col-
lective actions, these are translated into heartbeats. Different to other types of curren-
cies (coin, badge), the metaphor is not associated with monetization, but with feelings
of care, place attachment and involvement. Participants in the different activities during
4
the design phase welcomed this concept and felt it was adequate for the needs of the
different user types and the creation of community spirit.
Users can broadly use the platform to participate in activities and challenges, access
the service listing, and/or track their daily biking. The service listing and activities can
also be filtered thematically, based on different areas of sustainability (biking, con-
sumption, etc.). The users collect heartbeats through three basic means: tracking their
daily biking, discovering points of interests in the city, participating in activities and
challenges. Users can spend heartbeats by making or reporting suggestions or partici-
pating in lotteries. The lotteries offer the possibility for users to access material incen-
tives, awarded in public events, without implementing an online voucher or token
scheme. Making suggestions is a way to ensure users can feedback the local admin-
istration or services.
5 Conclusion and Future Work
In this work, we have reported on our approach to a multi-stakeholder context for per-
suasive design and on initial results for designing a city mobile and web application for
sustainable behaviour. We presented here our initial findings on integrating persuasive
design with other requirements such as participation, information provision and en-
gagement. We are currently working on a more detailed account of our method with
respect to multi-stakeholder engagement and on new iterations of the app design. We
aim to evaluate the final design of the app and mobile platform with the different groups
of constituents. We will implement the final application in partnership with the local
administration, and evaluate it long-term, in a city context.
Acknowledgements
This work has taken place within the project SimpliCITY (Agreement No. 870739),
supported by the European Union, FFG and Vinnova, in the framework of the Joint
Programme Initative Urban Europe, under the call Making Cities Work.
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