Weigh it and share it! Crowdsourcing for pro-environmental data collection

Crowdsourcing for addressing environmental challenges is a promising area in HCI research. This work investigates participation in a crowdsourcing initiative that combined a social-purpose activity with the interest of a company to crowdsource a labour-intensive task. The initiative was based on the deployment of a mobile application for pro-environmental data collection, namely collecting data about weight and type of product packaging. We report the results of a 9-month study conducted within a living lab that involved 96 customers of a large retail store. The analysis of usage logs and patterns of behaviour show different user categories: constant, sprinter and casual users. A survey was conducted to compare those categories as far as demographics, personality traits and usability metrics are concerned. Ten follow-up interviews further investigated motivations behind different usage patterns. The results provide insights on different types of contributors, reporting evidence on what motivated committed and less committed participants.