Exploring the Effects of Personal Impact Communicated Through Eco-Feedback Technology for Reducing Food Waste

We are surrounded by self-tracking technologies that provide us with vast amounts of personal data. Despite an abundance of information, the lack of personal impact and poor design often leads to ineffective eco-feedback technology. This paper explores how the communication of personal impact and different levels of specificity in information presentation can influence pro-environmental behavioral change. For the duration of one week, 7 participants inputted self-measured food waste data into a website that showed four data visualizations with different levels of specificity and personal impact. We found that communicating food waste data in terms of personal impact (i.e. money wasted, daily progress) better motivated participants as opposed to visualizations emphasizing altruistic values or uninterpreted data (i.e. interactive plant, aggregated waste). We identify what effects eco-feedback technologies with different levels of specificity have in user attention and satisfaction. The reported findings provide insight into elements to consider when designing eco-feedback technology.