Ecofriends, reflection with technology Elsa Kosmack Vaara Mobile Life Centre Isafjordsgatan, Kista, Sweden elsa@sics.se + 46 73 6576640 Anna Ståhl Mobile Life Centre Isafjordsgatan, Kista, Sweden elsa@sics.se + 46 73 6576640 Sara Borgström Stockholm Resilience Centre Stockholm University 10691 Stockholm Jakob Tholander Mobile Life Centre Isafjordsgatan, Kista, Sweden jakobth@dsv.su.se ABSTRACT The Ecofriends application is designed to engage people in environmental dilemmas when consuming grocery. Ecofriends show different socially constructed dimensions of what it means that a fruit or a vegetable is “in season”. It tell unexpected information about the area, the politics, news and weather where the fruit or vegetable was grown. It also connects the user to other friends using the application. The goal is to support reflection upon ones’ choices when buying groceries by building a space where users can operate their own idea about what season means to them and put it in a broader context. As an attendant of the theme season we also got involved in the dilemma of the western standardized organization of time in minutes hours weeks where nature’s different seasons and rhythms are invisible. We use an aesthetic approach to handle a complex set of information Author Keywords Seasons, social, reflection, design, aesthetics, rhythms UNFOLDING ENVIRONMENTAL DILEMMAS In large parts of the western culture people go shopping for groceries with little knowledge of, for example season, quality, ecology and social justice in grocery consumption. We explore ways to reflect users behavior patterns related to their everyday grocery shopping choices both from an individual and a social perspective. In our first prototype we explore the meaning of seasons. Environmental applications and services to support environmental thinking and behavior when shopping for food is typically providing information and teaching users about what is ecological, what is season, (e.g.Green, Guide, Naturskyddsföreningen) and seasonal/ ecological recipes. These are easily acquired and communicated, but they leave little room for subjectivity and reflection and it is often not entirely clear who provides this the “truth” of this information. In our approach the aesthetics of the technologies we produce play an important role in providing people with an open-ended design [1] that supports them in reflecting upon their acting rather than telling them what is a correct behavior. THE ECOFRIENDS APPLICATION Ecofriends is a mobile application that connects you to other friends using the application. It is designed to work as a scanning device used when grocery shopping at the supermarket. A user’s ‘Ecofriends’ are simply other users that use the application and are connected using e.g. existing social networks such as Facebook. The application has three visualization views; the scanning of groceries, the seasonal changes [fig.1] and the product-related visualization [fig.2]. The application visualizes the seasonal rhythms of vegetables and fruits by continuously constructing and characterizing three social voices of what products are in season; the voices of your friends, food experts, and “ordinary people” [fig3]. Figure 1. Scanning –and seasonal view It also dynamically gathers information about the geographical origin of the different products the users are buying. Local news, weather, together with a tweet and a blog relating to the product is used to support users in making a place-related interpretation of the product and its origin. All these voices represent different “truths” and the goal is to support a deeper reflection upon ones’ choices when buying groceries by building a space where users can operate their own idea about what season means and put it into a broader context. Form giving for reflection and embodiment To create a design for reflection we needed to find a balance of ambiguity where users can navigate [2]. The form qualities presented below have been crucial to keeping together the concept throughout the process. In Ecofriends, Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. CHI’12, May 5–10, 2012, Austin, Texas, USA. Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1015-4/12/05...$10.00.