Designing Tools and Interfaces for Ecological Restoration: An Investigation into the Opportunities and Constraints for Technological Interventions

As interest within the HCI community expands beyond urban settings, novel tools and devices are being developed to support more sustainable interactions with natural environments and inform conservation action. Yet little is known about the users of these devices, and how their requirements and priorities might affect the usability or operationalization of the devices in the real world. Using the ‘e-seed’, a biomimetic self-drilling interface as a ‘research probe’, we conducted a qualitative user study with 14 subject matter experts in areas like forestry and agriculture to understand the value and limits for devices and systems in ecological restoration and monitoring. We highlight unique challenges in existing ecological practices, opportunities for technological interventions, and the policies and economic constraints affecting the feasibility of such interventions. We present a set of critical design considerations for building and deploying novel devices in natural and semi-natural ecosystems and discuss implications for future research.