1.Problem Discription:

There are increasing number of mobile applications that has changed how we promote health and environmental sustainability such as encouraging walking through various methods.[1] In consideration of walking incentive apps, however, on the one hand, part of current apps mainly focus on cultivating individual behavior change, and community engagement is not concerned at some points. These apps may consider financial driven methods.[2] On the other hand, some apps concern more with environmental behaviours, in which walking is consist of one of the methods to enhancing low carbon foot-print. These apps often lack broad social impact unless backed by large enterprises, like Ant Forest[3], having wide-range user engagement and public welfare support. What’s more, both kinds of those apps’ function requires to collect and upload detailed step counts data and other personal activity information, which leads to privacy protection difficulty.[4] So here exists two challenges to solve : enhancing wider community involvement in environmental actions, specifically walking action in this project; and ensuring personal data protection in the app.

2.Proposed Solution - App Prototype’s Development and Evaluation: 2.1 Integration of Gamification Elements and Community Features: 2.1.1Gamification Inspired by Ant Forest and Forest App: The application will contain various gamification elements. Users will earn “tree points” for walking, which can then be used to plant virtual trees. After that, Users will pay different amounts of the “tree points” for planting trees having various sizes and types. This visualization method can emphasis on the connection between walking and environmental protection in the users intuitive perceptions. [3][5] 2.1.2Community Engagement: Another primary feature of the app is community engagement. Users will be able to form groups; send “tree points” to each other; and merge their forests with members in the same group to visualize collective environmental progress. These social features are expected to build a supportive network of users sharing same motivation of sustainability and health.