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With an attempt to connect ecological sustainability to users in a fun and interactive way that can nudge them into reflection of their everyday actions, this design research project tries to answer the main research question: How might we use immersive experiences in virtual environments to nudge participants into reflection; specifically, on climate change and sustainable behaviour? The available context, both in terms of climate change and the opportunity that exists in the communication of it; along with the design tools and good practices available were studied. Different design methodologies were reviewed to formulate a personalised yet well-grounded method, that was followed in this project. Through the use of these methodologies, a concept and two versions of the prototype were developed using Unity. These versions were tested with participants for the impact, and the quantitative and qualitative data that was gathered from the testing were analysed using statistical and thematic methods, respectively. From the analysis of the data, it became clear that this was just one little step that opens up more extensive research in this area. It can be concluded that VR can be thought of as an empathy generator due to its almost-unreal ability to transport users into any virtual space and make it feel like they are there. This ability of VR must be exploited to raise public empathy by taking abstract environmental concepts and make them more visible and relatable to everybody.

<p dir="ltr">Undernutrition affects millions of children in low- and middle- income countries, causing poor growth, poor development, and increased risk of mortality. Many nutrition-sensitive interventions for rural areas increase household access to nutritious foods through increasing home production, a strategy that has small positive effects on child diets. However, there is growing evidence that local markets are also important for dietary quality. Despite the importance of rural markets, the rural food environment and food purchasing practices among rural households are not well-characterized in the literature. It is possible that promoting improved household food purchase practices is an effective method for improving child nutrition in rural areas. Tanzania experiences a high prevalence of undernutrition among children under the age of 5 years, particularly among rural populations. This dissertation utilizes data from the Engaging Fathers for Effective Child Nutrition and Development in Tanzania (EFFECTS), a cluster randomized controlled trial that was conducted in rural Mara, Tanzania. The EFFECTS trial promoted improved diets through both home production and through food purchases through a social and behavior change strategy. We measured changes in dietary diversity (a proxy for diet quality), children’s nutrient intake adequacy, and diversity of foods purchased and produced. This dissertation presents evidence that food purchase diversity is positively associated with dimensions of the rural food environment, including high market food diversity (+0.37 food groups, p=0.01), living within 30 minutes of a market (+0.36 food groups, p=0.001) and household purchasing power (+0.14 food groups per additional million Tanzanian shillings spent by the household, p<0.001). In turn, purchase diversity is positively associated with dietary diversity (b=0.22, p<0.001), and intake adequacy of folate, vitamin B12, and calcium (all p<0.05) among children 9-23 months. Promoting food purchase diversity was effectively integrated into the EFFECTS interventions, resulting in purchasing +0.54 food groups at endline compared to changes in the control (p<0.01), which mediated 25% of the total improvement in child dietary diversity. In contrast, production diversity was associated with increased intake adequacy of vitamin A only (p<0.05), households produced +0.44 food groups at endline compared to control (p<0.05), and this mediated 15% of the total improvement in child dietary diversity. These findings suggest that promoting diverse food purchases, alongside diverse home production, is an effective way to improve children’s diets in similar settings.</p>

A helpful tool in forming, breaking, and maintaining habits and behaviors is a digital behavior change intervention (DBCI). These are interventions that leverage digital technologies to help their users to either take on or avoid certain behaviors. A common problem is a lack of user engagement with the interventions’ content, which is key for its effectiveness. It has however been shown that gamified content and using prompts—such as push notifications—may have the effect of increasing user engagement, for both DBCIs and other applications. Furthermore, two commonly occurring game concepts are competition and cooperation, each with different influences on engagement which in turn may vary depending on the context and the user. Therefore, this thesis set out to examine how push notifications can be used to increase user engagement with a gamified DBCI by making its gamified elements more salient. Additionally, it will investigate if there is any difference in influence on engagement of notifications that either promote competition or cooperation. This was evaluated by deploying two different push notification strategies on Deedster—a gamified mobile DBCI with the aim to get its users to reduce their personal CO2-emissions—and tracking user behavior. The results of the evaluation showed that users who received push notifications were more engaged—started more sessions and spent more time—with the application than users who did not receive any. They also performed a significantly higher amount of target behaviors. There was no difference in the influence on performed target behaviors between the notifications promoting competition or cooperation, and only one significant difference—usage of intervention features—regarding user engagement. The gender of the user was also found to be a considerable factor in the influence of the push notifications. Competition increased engagement more than cooperation for male users, but not for female users. / Ett effektivt verktyg för att forma, bryta eller bibehålla vanor och beteenden är en så kallad digital beteendeförändrings-intervention (eng. digital behavior change intervention eller DBCI). Dessa interventioner använder digital teknik för att hjälpa deras användare att antingen påbörja eller undvika särskilda beteenden. Ett vanligt problem med dessa är att användarna ofta inte är särskilt engagerade i interventionernas innehåll eller funktioner, vilket är viktigt för deras effektivitet. Emellertid har det visats att spelifierat innehåll och användandet av notiser—såsom push-notiser—kan ha en ökande effekt på engagemanget. Två vanligt förekommande spelkoncept är tävling och samarbete, båda med sina olika effekter på engagemang vilket också skiftar beroende på kontexten och användaren. Därför ska detta examensarbete undersöka hur push-notiser kan användas för att öka användar-engagemanget i en spelifierad och mobil beteendeförändrings-intervention genom att göra dess spelifierade element mer framträdande. Dessutom kommer det även undersökas om det är någon skillnad i effekt mellan notiser som antingen främjar tävling eller samarbete. Detta var utvärderat genom att använda två olika push-notis-strategier på Deedster—en spelifierad, mobil intervention som syftar till att minska dess användares CO2-utsläpp—och sedan följa användarnas beteende. Resultaten visade att användare som fick push-notiser var mer engagerade—startade mer sessioner och spenderade mer tid—inom applikationen jämfört med användare som inte fick några notiser. De utförde också signifikant fler önskade beteenden. Det var ingen skillnad i effekt på antalet önskade beteende utförda mellan att främja tävling eller samarbete och endast några få skillnader i engagemang. Dock visade det sig att användarens kön var en betydande faktor i effekten av notiserna. Notiserna som främjade tävling var mer effektiva för manliga användare jämfört med de som främjade samarbete. Denna effekt syntes inte bland kvinnliga användare. / Designing digital technologies for supporting energy-related behavior change in the kitchen

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The societal problem of pediatric obesity is growing in Sweden with more patients receiving pediatric treatment while the treatment measures have not improved to match the increase. This exploratory study examines a mobile application aiming to improve treatment for pediatric obesity. The study will evaluate the current application through the lens of HCI with a focus on self-care and will be based on digital behavior change intervention (DBCI), persuasive systems, and playful user-centered design (UCD), with design recommendations stated based on the evaluation. User-centered design is a design process involving end-users in the design process, the users were involved through semi-structured interviews. User-centered design is a large part of the study with user input laying the foundation for new design recommendations. Users thought that the application would benefit from having more short-term goals to boost motivation. Furthermore, a heuristic analysis was done to get an expert view on the user interface. The results were promising and indicated some potential improvements for the application, one suggested improvement was to provide more positive feedback to boost motivation. The thesis discusses how more visualization of data might have the potential to both boost motivation and result in a more playful user experience. / Samhällsproblemet med barnfetma växer i Sverige med fler patienter som får pediatrisk behandling samtidigt som behandlings åtgärderna inte har förbättrats för att matcha ökningen. Denna explorativa studie undersöker en mobilapplikation som syftar till att förbättra behandlingen av barnfetma. Studien utvärderar den aktuella applikationen och är baserad på digital beteendeförändringsintervention (DBCI), persuasive systems och lekfull användarcentrerad design (UCD), med designrekommendationer angivna baserat på utvärdering samt semistrukturerade intervjuer. Användarcentrerad design är en stor del av studien med användarinput som lägger grunden för nya design rekommendationer. Intervjuerna lyfte fram att applikationen skulle tjäna på att ha fler kortsiktiga mål för att öka motivationen. Resultaten indikerade potentiella förbättringar för applikationen, exempelvis att ge mer positiv feedback. Slutligen diskuteras hur en mer genomarbetad visualisering av data kan leda dels till ökad motivation och dels till mer lekfull interaktion.