beEco: Co-designing a Game with Children to Promote Environmental Awareness - A Case Study

In this paper we describe the goals and challenges posed by the development of beEco an interactive game aiming to increasing environmental awareness. Here we recount the HCI based process and design strategy for an interactive game aiming at promoting a new and more positive dialogue between the local population and a Nature Reserve Park. Recognizing the power of relationships and the creative potential and emotional impact of children, the team ended up involving local schools in the visual design of the interactive game. Here, we present and discuss our field research, design decisions and the results from several iterative prototype testing. We conclude with a discussion about our results compared to the aims of the project. The project targeted an increase of environmental awareness of the local professionals and the creation of a new and more positive dialogue between the local population and the Nature Park.