It has been almost a year since I started this blog. The first year of my phd studies have gone faster than expected and the time for blogging a bit more scarce than I would have liked it to be. I wrote 47 articles, but I think I have as many as drafts or ideas I know I should have written about.

During this year there where around 1300 visits, which is probably more than I expected specially with the low frequency of writing. So thank you to all that have been here! Please comment if you would like to see some concrete improvement.

Now I’m taking a month break, getting married and enjoying the summer. The blog will be back in August with renewed energy and new posts!

The paper written together with Daniel Spikol at CeLeKT has been accepted at Mobile Human Computer Interaction 2009 in the workshop on Sharing Experiences with Social Mobile Media.

Here is the abstract:

We have a personal relationship with mobile phones, since they are closer to us than any other technological device. They are ubiquitous (60% of the world population owns one), individual, and pervasive through our lifestyle (we have them with us all the time and everywhere). These modern devices are nearly as powerful as personal computers, always connected to Internet and loaded with sensors like GPS and accelerometers. These mobile devices offer the opportunity to persuade users to change attitudes and behaviors towards personal health and environmental issues. For this paper we will focus on the design of a mobile application for reducing in carbon dioxide emissions, using the definition of “Climate Persuasive Services” that can change personal attitudes and behaviors regarding climate change for reducing greenhouse gases emissions. The paper presents design practices that have resulted in a prototype mobile application.

I will post the pdf soon.

The paper I presented at Persuasive 2009 is now available for download as PDF at ACM. Please have a look at it!

Here is the abstract:

ICT has reshaped our society, and with the current accelerating development of technology, and its wider distribution throughout the globe, they will continue doing so even more. These changes in society are important for sustainability. They affect the physical way the society and the environment interact, but they also affect the way people think, learn and behave.

We suggest that the persuasive power of ICT can be oriented towards climate change. For this purpose we define the concept of “climate persuasive services” as ICT applications that change personal attitudes regarding climate change and/or change behavior towards reducing greenhouse gases emissions. We consider mobile phones, pervasive sensors and social media as three key technological drivers for the development of climate persuasion applications.

We have analyzed the use of persuasion principles in existing web and mobile applications forming three clusters: tracking carbon footprints, sharing goals and making green behavior easier. Based on this analysis, we suggest a more planned use of persuasive principles, and propose six different opportunities for improvement.