GAMEPLAY: The four week project began as a global look at behavioural changes, as it relates to recycling, conservation and better use of our finite resources; we used the metaphor of play as a tool to raise awareness and encourage green behaviors.

Team Members:
Amid Moradganjeh
George Paravantes

BRAINSTORM: Our group discussions began with looking at what makes games fun?, how do we create awareness in passive ways while people enjoy an activity?. What would be some rules to consider, as well as rewards and punishments while playing a game. These are a few of the attributes we considered when looking at what makes a game great.

Behavioural Observations: One of the first step we took was to get out of our studio and go out and see what people actually do day to day. We got permission to observe people while they shopped and recycled to document their behaviours. We observed both ends of users one’s who genuinely cared and other that were apathetic and showed indifference.

FOLLOW-UP: Another approach we took was to observe the amount of waste that people generate in a day. It was interesting to note the products and packaging people used and discarded. Furthermore the amount of awareness people had when it came to consumption or resources to make certain products.

FOCUS IN ON ISSUE: Although recycling gets a lot of attention. We decided it would be much more beneficial and have greater impact to look at the issue when people first purchase a product and educate them while they shopped in a passive playful way.

VIDEO DIARY: Each week we put together a video documenting our design focus and direction in the coming weeks.

RETAIL: While evaluating various retail experiences we began to realize that the shopping cart was an amusing area to focus in on, while offering the most potential to incorporate various behaviours.

SKETCHES: We used explorative sketches to discover and see what kind of scenarios and behaviours a cart would have in different retail experiences. The amount of sketches let us see a variety or interesting solution that had relevance.

VISUALIZE IMPACT: Another feature that is key to the Eco-Cart is the ability to sense and rate products based on their environmental impact. We looked at developing a rating system that would be credible and offer consumer at a glance information quickly about the eco impact of a product.

BUILD IT: During this stage we captured the idea of an Eco-Cart and the idea of a rating system for eco products. At this point we started making the cart tangible and working on the the fidelity of the graphics and how and where they would be incorporated on the cart. We quickly began prototyping and evaluating what worked and what didn’t.

ECO RATING SYSTEM: The labelling and rating of eco conscious products has to be credible we had conversations about how the numbers would be verified and by who. The stakeholders in rating these products would be from governmental and advocacy groups with input from industry. The reason to make labels easy for consumers is not to confuse them and make information available at glance.

ECO-SUMMARY: Another important aspect of this system is for the ability for consumers to have a eco summary of their retail experience. Scaling the system so it incorporates a reward function over time for good environmental shopping is meant to help create a “win win win” scenario for retailers, customers and environmental issues.

COOP MEETING: With all the work done thus far we approached a local grocery chain call COOP KONSUM and ask for assistance in filming the scenario. They eagerly we’re on board and offered their grocery retail environment to us, they also shared their green initiatives and offered advice and direction on the project.

PROTOTYPE: The shopping cart prototype was made to reproduce and discover behavioural aspects of the cart. The Steering angle, along with braking ability, and shaking of basket were attributes we incorporated. We used fiducials on various products and programmed them to react positively or negatively when placed in the cart if the accumulation of many negative products occurred then the cart would begin to act more erratic.

AND ACTION!!!: The final scenario was ready to begin filming at COOP KONSUM at Alidhem centrum. The purpose of the video is to narrate and give context to the Eco-Cart in a retail environment. We decided to film in parallel the experiences of two extreme uses, the eco conscious shopper and the indifferent negative shopper. The cart reacted to shoppers in both negative and positive behaviours.

SPECIAL THANKS: We would like to give special thanks to COOP KONSUM for their permission to film in their retail space. Also a special thanks to Joshua Treuhaft and Tatiana Mamaeva our talented actors that did a great job under such a tight schedule. Thanks again for all your hard work.