Designing the world’s first digital genomic garden to raise awareness of biodiversity medicine

THE CLIENT

SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Biodiversity Medicine (BD-MED)

WHAT WE DID

Stakeholder consultation & engagement
Audience research & engagement
Storytelling & strategy
Experience design & implementation
Gamification strategy & implementation

Experience and gamification strategy for Singapore General Hospital Bicentennial Genomic Garden

The SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Biodiversity Medicine (BD-MED) studies the genetic makeup and nutritional and medicinal value of local and regional plants. It aims to translate its discoveries into applications that fight diseases and contribute to environmental and food sustainability.

Many of the plants BD-MED has been studying are found at the SGH Bicentennial Genomic Garden at the Singapore General Hospital. The institute partnered with HOL to create a virtual experience that helps the public learn about biodiversity and the health-promoting and medicinal properties of selected plants.

IMPACT

scans since launch

0 +

24 seconds

average engagement time per user

Featured

by the Asian Development Bank as a development solution for Southeast Asian countries

The virtual experience was launched in January 2024. It was featured by the Asian Development Bank’s Southeast Asia Development Solutions platform as an inspiring technology innovation that could help regional countries address sustainability challenges.

While it is still too soon to see its impact, the digital experience helps drive public awareness about the medicinal and health-promoting benefits of local and regional plants.

SUMMARY

The possibilities of nature’s gifts

Nature offers abundant therapeutic benefits, but most people are unaware of them. The virtual experience helps users recognise the potential of nature’s gifts to humanity, leading to a greater appreciation for biodiversity and environmental sustainability.

ABOUT THE CLIENT

SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Biodiversity Medicine (BD-MED)

BD-MED is a joint initiative by Singapore Health Service and Duke-NUS Medical School. It aims to accelerate biodiversity research to promote human health and wellness. Its three signature programmes are herbal biodiversity and medicine, food biodiversity and nutrition, and urban biodiversity and wellness.

Challenge

Closing the gap between users and scientific facts

On the one hand, BD-MED researchers were enthusiastic about sharing their scientific knowledge and discoveries with users.

On the other hand, we recognised that humans default to behaviours that would minimise cognitive demands. In a setting like a garden where users are taking a breather from the daily grind, they are an uncommitted audience.

The knowledge should be presented in interesting and relatable ways so that users would be willing to engage with it intuitively without too much effort. How could we strike a balance between hard scientific facts and accessible content?

INSIGHTS AND STRATEGY

Educate while entertaining

For any virtual experience, if we provide users with content that requires too much effort to process, they may lose interest quickly. But if we give them too little content, we may miss sharing valuable information with them.

Thus, we must ascertain both the type and amount of content for the SGH Bicentennial Genomic Garden experience.

Edutainment combines fun and learning. As a result of the fun it offers, it provides a lower barrier of entry to learning for an uncommitted audience.

If we could get users interested through games, we would have a higher chance of them becoming active, invested learners who would pick up the content we wanted to share. Once their interest has been piqued, we could motivate them to take action for positive change.

Solution

The right content at the right level

Personalised experience

We sorted sample information about the plants into categories: information users would willingly read, information they would need some motivation to read, and information they would not be interested in and hence not read.

We then tested the information with target users, and our findings helped us determine the right type of content and the right level of content that would optimally engage users.

We created a gamified, immersive experience that transports users into an interactive, virtual space and engages them actively.

Users can pinch, rotate and resize 3D models of the plants to get a closer look from all angles while enjoying bite-sized content on them.
They can play micro-games related to the plants, such as multiple-choice quizzes and card-matching and object-catching games. These familiar and engaging games successfully “hook” users deeper into the experience.
They can also take photos with the 3D models of the plants using augmented reality (AR) and share them on social media.

Accessing the experience on their mobile phones by scanning a QR code allows users to personalise their experience and decide what they want to see and when and how they want to enjoy it.

For example, they can listen to audio recordings of the content accessed via a sound icon. This feature is helpful for users experiencing low vision or who prefer audio.

If they want more content, they can download PDFs for detailed information. They can scan the QR code and access the content somewhere else without being in the garden.

We also encourage users to tell others about the garden and the virtual experience so that the sustainability message reaches more people.

I was impressed by how Angeline, Terence, and the creative team at HOL went beyond the specifications outlined in our initial work brief to develop a solution for our project. With their strong understanding of effective UX and expertise in creating memorable visitor experiences, HOL designed interactive games to make the ‘hard science’ of our research more accessible for a general audience. In addition, the shareability of the experience allowed us to expand the reach of our project. Good job to the HOL team!

Professor Teh Bin Tean

Director,
SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Biodiversity Medicine

Designing the world’s first digital genomic garden to raise awareness of biodiversity medicine