Urban gardening education: User reflections on mobile application designs.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Urban Planning

Background:

• Mobile gardening applications present opportunities to influence urban dwellers' environmental behavior and promote nature engagement.
• The educational potential of these digital tools for fostering green cities is currently underutilized.
• Understanding user perspectives is crucial for optimizing the role of mobile apps in urban environmental education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the extent to which current mobile applications facilitate digital education for green city development.
• To gain in-depth insights into user motivations and experiences with urban gardening apps.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative research employing a user insight approach.
• Analysis of 7,980 user reviews from fourteen mobile gardening applications on the Google Play Store.

Main Results:

• Identified key user motivations for downloading urban gardening applications.
• Highlighted specific app features that enhance or impede user engagement and learning.
• Revealed user-identified barriers and facilitators to using these apps for environmental education.

Conclusions:

• Mobile gardening apps possess significant, yet underexploited, potential for digital environmental education in urban settings.
• App developers and urban stakeholders can leverage user insights to enhance app design and educational impact.
• Optimizing these applications can contribute to the development of more sustainable and nature-connected green cities.