GreenCompass: Weaving Playful Nature Engagement into Urban Micro-Moments through Context-Aware Gamification

Urbanization increasingly separates people from nature, negatively affecting well-being. While prior work has explored technological interventions to foster human-nature interaction (HNI), embedding nature engagement into daily urban life remains challenging. We present GreenCompass, a social mobile application that recommends nearby micro-opportunities for nature encounters through context-aware scheduling, gamification, and adaptive tasks. To evaluate its effectiveness, we conducted a four-week mixed-methods field study with 40 participants split into two conditions: GreenCompass and a reminder-based baseline. Results showed that GreenCompass better improved nature relatedness, outdoor activity levels, well-being, perceived stress, and social connectedness. Our analysis identified four design themes: embedding nature into micro-moment integration, collective nature engagement, cultivating intrinsic bonds with nature, and system challenges. We further provide design implications to support everyday urban nature engagement. This work demonstrates how everyday mobile technology can help bridge the urban-nature divide and promote well-being.