Bee Adventurous
Design Problem: Bees are often feared and misunderstood by many people, despite their importance in our ecosystem. They are often confused with wasps, which are known to sting people without hesitation. Whereas, bees will only sting if their hive or themselves are in danger. Based on questionnaires and interviews, we found that that the negative experiences and perceptions that others have about bees have made it more difficult for people to care about bees. Being able to empathize with bees will help more people to be educated and take a small action to stop the declining bee population. The goal of Bee Adventurous is to help children be more empathetic towards bees by putting them into nature so they can observe and understand bees better in their natural habitat.
Assumption: Is it possible to change children’s perspective of bees to make them more empathetic towards the insect that many have negative experiences and ideas of? Through participatory design, we collaborated closely with educators, beekeepers, gardeners, farmers, and organizations who tested our assumptions, validated, and shaped our project directions.
Research and Insight: We discovered that many educational video games and websites about bees are too cold and unengaging enough to make people care about bees. We also learned that people have to be outside in nature to overcome their fears and misconceptions about bees. Through our research, we focused on building an educational augmented reality game that puts children outside into their local parks, so they can safely learn to observe bees, understand their importance in our ecosystem, and learn to empathize with their declining population
User Interface: People can also use the Bee Adventurous app to learn about native plants in their area and learn more about how to interact with bees. I created the UI of this app. Check out the prototype on here!
Merchandise: In order to be approachable for both events, we created some merchandise to entice children to our table. Some of the merchandise I created were stickers, buttons, bags, and informational flyers for parents to learn more about Bee Adventurous. We also bought some prizes such as honey candy and a bee eraser to have more prize options for children. I also made tee shirts with our logo on them for each team member to make us look more legitimate at the event. The merchandise did significantly draw children into our booth to conduct user testing.
