BotaXplore: Enhancing Visitor Engagement and Learning in Botanical Gardens Through Mobile Technology
Abstract
Educational guided visits in botanical gardens offer valuable opportunities for learning and engagement that promote awareness of the importance of biological diversity, its conservation, and sustainable use. However, a focus group with five botanists identified challenges in designing tours for heterogeneous audiences that foster curiosity and interest, as well as in tailoring educational content. To address these aspects, this paper presents BotaXplore, a prototype mobile application that supports plant exploration in botanical gardens through three modes: exploratory, semi-guided, and tour-based. Using photo-based identification, users access short facts and quizzes about plants, and discovered species are added to a personal collection. Building on this prototype, we plan to evaluate the app's impact on nature engagement and learning outcomes after improving learning paths, content generation, and support for collaborative exploration.
