Conservation organizations often invite the public to adopt endangered animals, but it is difficult to sustain engagement once the initial excitement fades. We explore an alternative to one-off immersive media by designing and studying an ambient digital companion that keeps adopters peripherally aware of their animal in everyday life. Drawing on a survey (N=162), interviews (N=18), and co-design with adopters and staff (N=10), we created WildCompanion, an iPhone widget and Apple Watch app that delivers short, vetted updates and photos. We deployed WildCompanion with adopters (N=22) for 30 days, combining logs, weekly questionnaires, and exit interviews. Our findings show how an ambient companion can become a calm, always-there presence that fits into routines, nurtures emotional connection, and prompts small conservation-related actions without causing notification fatigue. We contribute empirical insights and a design framework for ambient companions in conservation and related cause-driven domains. We discuss implications for future conservation technology research.
ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems