Game-based Plant Science Popularization Mobile Application for Contemporary Young People

Abstract: Nature is the basic condition for human survival and development. The nature-deficit disorder is a phenomenon put forward by American writer Richard Louv, that is, the complete separation of modern urban children from nature in the 21st century. Some experts explain that this desire and ignorance of nature is due to a lack of time to go outdoors, especially in the countryside. In real life, the population of "nature-deficit disorder" has expanded from children to adults. In order to let young people go into nature and understand the thousands of plants in nature, our team wants to design an application to popularize plants through a game-based live experience, so that users can learn more plant knowledge in fun. This design adopts the methods of the questionnaire survey, user interview, and literature retrieval to deeply discover the contemporary young people's understanding of plants, the development status of game-based science popularization apps at home and abroad, and the expected functions of users, to determine the information construction, visual image and interactive experience of the APP. Our team uses Rhino, Cinema 4D, Blender, Unity, Unreal and other software, combined with ergonomics to achieve scene modeling and rendering, to create a more realistic AR experience. The APP can guide users to enter the virtual map, take photos and punch cards through AR switching angles, and randomly obtain passes to unlock other maps. At the same time, users can click to view specific plant data, unlock the plant by completing key tasks such as roots, stems, and leaves, and bring it into the backpack for creation; the app can also game the handicraft which uses plants as raw materials, and guide users to create their own unique imprint. After the usability test, the respondents all believed that this APP could produce a better effect of plant science popularization in the game experience.

Keywords: Nature, deficit disorder, Gamification experience, Plant science popularization, Augmented Reality, Ergonomics

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003864

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