How Can Interactive Technology Help Us to Experience Joy With(in) the Forest? Towards a Taxonomy of Tech for Joyful Human-Forest Interactions

Research Background and Issues

• Problems or challenges identified by the authors:

  • With the gradual introduction of technology into forest experiences, the integration of forests and technology often focuses on efficiency and commercialization (e.g., fitness tracking or geographic navigation), neglecting the emotional, sociocultural, and environmental complexities of forest experiences.
  • Traditional technology-forest interactions tend to adopt an "extractive" perspective, viewing forests as resources to be developed or utilized rather than as rich ecosystems.

• Why this issue is important:

  • Forests offer more than just fitness or navigation convenience; they can inspire human happiness and foster appreciation and resonance with multi-species ecosystems.
  • Enhancing the multi-layered interaction between humans and forests through technology design benefits individual mental health and promotes deeper human-nature relationships and environmental conservation awareness.

• Research motivation and related work:

  • The authors aim to focus on "pleasure" as a core value in technology design, exploring how to make multi-sensory and multi-species forest experiences richer and more meaningful.
  • Unlike previous research emphasizing ecological protection or productivity tools, this work is inspired by "multi-species design" and "celebratory technology" concepts in HCI and design research, seeking to fundamentally redefine the role of technology in forest contexts.

Solution

• Proposed methods or solutions:

  • Through a year-long design-based study, the authors developed a 12-item taxonomy showcasing how interactive technologies can support forest experiences centered on pleasure.
  • Using five rounds of co-design interventions with over 250 participants globally and various forest interactions, they generated 104 speculative design ideas and conducted reflective analysis on them.

• Innovative aspects of the solution:

  • Positioning "pleasure" as the core value in technology design rather than efficiency or productivity.
  • Introducing multi-species care and non-extractive design principles, shifting forest experiences from a "human-centered" perspective to one of "nature-culture coexistence."

• Implementation steps and key techniques:

  1. Participatory co-design: Conducting on-site co-design in diverse forest environments (from Mediterranean forests to Nordic lake districts) to foster proximity and perception of different ecological settings.
  2. Data collection and collaborative generation: Using interactive workshops, summer camps, and hiking dialogues to gather diverse perspectives and stimulate creative discussions.
  3. Reflective analysis: Categorizing 104 design concepts and distilling 12 interaction technology patterns that enhance pleasurable forest experiences.

Research Outcomes

• Specific achievements:

  • Proposed a taxonomy of 12 technology-enabled approaches, such as "enhancing sensory experiences," "supporting creative forest stewardship," and "reimagining forest playgrounds" (see detailed descriptions in the solution section).
  • Further revealed how technology design can simultaneously promote human pleasure and maintain care for non-human ecological partners.

• Advantages compared to existing solutions:

  • Moving beyond a productivity-focused perspective, combining the complex ecological attributes of forests to propose an interaction design pathway of "multi-species empathy."
  • Emphasizing co-design, embracing diverse individual and cultural backgrounds, and expanding design options for forest experiences.

• Experimental or evaluation results:

  • Design interventions included various forest backgrounds and scenarios (primarily European forests) and incorporated perspectives from 6 continents and over 40 countries.
  • Participant-proposed designs ranged from "memory-enhancing tools" to "supernatural experience enhancement devices," demonstrating a blend of broad applicability and creativity.

• Limitations and future directions:

  • Limitations:
    • The study primarily focused on European forests, with limited representation of non-Western and non-urban forest experiences.
    • The definition of "pleasure" was largely human-centered, with limited discussion on "non-human/multi-species pleasure."
  • Future directions:
    • Expanding research to globally diverse forest contexts, including tropical rainforests and desert-edge forests.
    • Integrating "care" as a core value into the taxonomy, exploring how human pleasurable experiences can translate into greater environmental care actions.
    • Investigating how these design concepts can transition from experimental settings to practical non-extractive applications, while assessing industrial feasibility and ecological friendliness.

Conclusion

This study provides rich design inspiration for technology empowerment in forest experiences and opens up a pathway for interaction design that shifts from "human-centered" to "multi-species coexistence." Through an intuitive and actionable taxonomy, the research encourages future technological innovations to focus more on the richness and diversity of human experiences.