Can Interactive Installations Bring About Behaviour Change? Using Interactive Installation to Change Food Waste Behaviours

Addressing social issues using interactive installations has gained substantial impetus with the advent of new technologies. Public installations can be designed to interact with people in an engaging, non-intrusive manner in order to create awareness and motivate the audience. In this paper, we present a design solution to encourage people not to waste food. This installation is designed in accordance with persuasive theories, and utilizes moderate amounts of coercive feedback. The goal is to motivate people and bring about a behaviour change without being paternalistic in nature, which as an approach often fails to bring about a change in their behaviour. Effect of the designed installation was studied on students of a university. Individual and total food waste was recorded and statistical tests were performed to evaluate the quantitative data, which was further investigated by an online survey. The results of the study show that interactive installations have the potential to bring about behaviour change in people.