Spaces of Confluence: Experience Design for Protecting Freshwater
How do we help people care more deeply for waterways and participate in protecting them? Canada’s waterways are becoming increasingly stressed through lack of political will and public inaction. People are also increasingly feeling environmental anxiety because of climate change. How can we find purpose, understanding, and meaning to help protect our lakes, rivers and streams?
This project was originally designed to explore how games could be combined with crowd- sourced water testing (citizen science) to build a more engaged public. Kat has been working on Water Rangers, an open-data platform for water quality testing for the past four years, and it’s been a way to engage people with water science. But, her dream is to make a big difference for waterways; that means thousands, if not millions, of people involved. And that requires an enticing experience.
Through eight prototyping iterations, Kat explored how game mechanics could help create a fulfilling water testing context and experience. Willing water testers raced around Building 21; they were testing water in simulated environments using maps and other visuals, describing how they felt, what language let them understand simple scientific concepts, and what felt the most meaningful and uplifting. In later iterations, a phone app experience allowed them to engage with projected outdoor water scenes to see how experiences near water could be simulated so she could validate feedback loops. The concepts explored water and electricity's similarities in flow and energy, and moved beyond extrinsic game mechanics like points and badges, and into the realm of creating intrinsic and meaningful connections while understanding the uniqueness and beauty of waterways.
