BinCam: Designing for Engagement with Facebook for Behavior Change

In this paper we continue work to investigate how we can engage young adults in behaviors of recycling and the prevention of food waste through social media and persuasive and ubiquitous computing systems. Our previous work with BinCam, a two-part design combining a system for the collection of waste-related behaviors with a Facebook application, suggested that although this ubiquitous system could raise awareness of recycling behavior, engagement with social media remained low. In this paper we reconsider our design in terms of engagement, examining both the theoretical and practical ways in which engagement can be designed for. This paper presents findings from a new user study exploring the redesign of the social media interface following this analysis. By incorporating elements of gamification, social support and improved data visualization, we contribute insights on the relative potential of these techniques to engage individuals across the lifespan of a system’s deployment. Author