Gingerman Challenge: A Persuasive Game for Promoting
Adequate Sunlight Exposure for Office Workers
Hajin Lim1
Jaehyeon Park2
Bongwon Suh3
13
2
Human Centered Computing Lab , Game Media Lab
Seoul National University, Republic of Korea
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we present Gingerman Challenge, which is a
persuasive mobile game designed to promote moderate
sunlight exposure. The design goals of Gingerman
Challenge are to help players to recognize the merits of
sunlight exposure and to promote maintenance of healthy
vitamin D levels. We aim to accomplish these goals by
incorporating both casual gaming features and the design
principles drawn from preliminary user interviews.
Author Keywords
Persuasive game; casual game; health game; behavior
change; vitamin D; sun exposure; design for moderation
ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI):
Miscellaneous.
INTRODUCTION
Vitamin D deficiency has become a worldwide problem.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
(NHANES III) [3] revealed that three-quarters of U.S. teens
and adults are deficient in vitamin D. The sun's UV-B rays
enable skin cells to manufacture vitamin D, which is
essential to absorb calcium and phosphorus from diet. A
lack of vitamin D can cause bones to become weak, which
might lead to bone deformities.
To reach the recommended level of vitamin D, people
should expose themselves to a moderate amount of
sunlight. However, it is complicated to determine ‘How
much sunlight is adequate?’, because not only
environmental factors such as weather and location, but
also individual factors such as skin color and sunscreen use
can affect the amount of ultraviolet radiation received and
vitamin D synthesis [4]. Thus, even though individuals feel
the necessity of sun exposure, it is difficult to recognize
‘how long they need to be exposed’ and ‘how to minimize
the risk of sun exposure such as skin cancer’ at the same
time.
To address this challenge, we propose a persuasive game,
Gingerman Challenge (GC), which aims to encourage
players to get adequate sunlight exposure in more playful
and less complicated ways. Previous research and
applications, such as Sundroid [1] and SunSmart [2] have
mainly focused on protecting users from overexposure to
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sunlight and on informing the current UV index and its
dangers. GC provides personalized recommendation, the
adequate time range (e.g. 11AM to 3PM) and duration (e.g.
30mins) for sun exposure, by integrating real-time
environmental data (weather, location) and individual
characteristics (age, skin color, sunscreen use). We use a
‘Baking Oven’ metaphor in game design, in which the
sunlight exposure is regarded as the heat for baking a
gingerman cookie. The mission of this game is to bake a
gingerman by getting the adequate amount of sunlight: not
to let it burn (overexposure to the sun) nor under baked
(insufficient exposure). After comparing the recommended
sun exposure time and the actual exposure duration at the
end of each day, only a player with the adequate amount of
sunlight is awarded for his/her achievement.
DESIGN PRINCIPLE
Four design principles to develop GC were drawn from user
interviews. Because there is limited amount of research on
managing sun exposure, we think it is essential to obtain
opinions of potential users. We recruited five full-time
students and five full-time office workers who spent most
of their daytime indoors. (5 Females, Average 26 yrs. old)
1) Provide personalized and practicable information
Most interviewees were fairly aware of the benefit and the
necessity of the adequate sun exposure. However, they did
not know how exactly they could put this knowledge into
practicable action. Thus, GC should provide practicable and
personalized information for each player after collecting
environmental and personal data in unobtrusive ways.
2) Design for moderation: sun block vs. sun exposure
Because both blocking and catching the sun are equally
important, keeping to the middle between them is tricky.
The female interviewees were especially afraid of getting
freckled or sunburnt by overexposure to the sun. Thus, it
should help players to exercise the moderation, which
enables them to enjoy the merits of sun exposure as well as
stay safe from the harmful effects of the sun.
3) Integrate with daily routines
Some interviewees hinted that it would be hard to make
them adopt and engage in new target behavior. Thus, GC
should be integrated into the daily routines of players.
Therefore, we select one of daily routines of potential users,
checking up the daily weather, which should mingle well
with our game because daily weather usually determines the
optimal daily sun exposure duration.
4) Provide alternative options to supplement vitamin D
Interviewees pointed out several unavoidable situations for
playing GC, such as bad weather conditions, business duties
and class works. Therefore, when a player inevitably misses
a chance to get sunlight, GC should suggest alternatives to
supplement insufficient vitamin D, by recommending the
food that contains vitamin D, such as fish oils, milk or
vitamin D supplements.
GINGERMAN CHALLENGE
Gingerman Challenge is a persuasive mobile game aiming
to promote players to get moderate amount of sunlight for
maintaining healthy vitamin D levels.
At sunset, when a user cannot take in sunlight anymore, GC
evaluates each player’s performance by comparing the
actual sun exposure duration and the recommended
duration (Figure 2-Right). Only when a player takes the
appropriate amount of sunlight and bakes a gingerman
properly, s/he can be awarded with virtual coins to buy
items to decorate gingerman further. If a player does not
reach the recommended sun exposure duration, s/he will
receive a food list to supplement vitamin D. When a player
is overexposed to the sunlight, s/he will receive a warning
message about the harmful effects of the sun.
Smartphone
Application
Wearable
UV Sensor
Figure 1. System Components (Left) / Algorithm (Right)
The GC architecture (Figure 1) is composed of two
components. The first is a wearable UV sensor that tracks
the actual sun exposure time of players and transmits it to
an Android client via Bluetooth. The second is the Android
application that includes (1) the gameplay UI and (2) the
algorithm for estimating the optimum exposure durations
for a healthy vitamin D status [5]. This algorithm utilizes
the following data to elicit the accurate optimal exposure
duration: (a) real-time environmental data: weather and
location data using GPS sensor and weather API, (b) user
characteristics: skin color, age, sex, and etc., from user
generated profiles, and (c) daily clothing and sunscreen use
from the character customization interface (Figure 2-Left).
Gameplay
When a player starts the game, GC provides today’s
weather information and introduces today’s gingerman to
bake. If players want to participate in the challenge, s/he
should decorate the gingerman using cloth and sunscreen
powders in accordance with how they actually dress and put
on sunscreen (Figure 2-Left). GC requires this information
because body exposure is contingent upon clothing and
sunscreen use and changes every day, which is important to
calculate the daily optimal sun exposure duration. Along
with this information, GC utilizes player’s current
location/weather data and user profile to calculate the
personalized sun exposure time and duration. Then, GC
gives players a mission: optimal sun exposure time and
duration to bake the gingerman successfully.
During the day, a UV sensor tracks player’s actual sun
exposure time and duration. When the player takes in
sunlight, GC displays current progress (Figure 2-Middle).
On the other hand, when the player does not take in
sunlight, GC displays a drained gingerman with warning
messages about vitamin D deficiency.
Figure 2. Gameplay UI (Left: Character Customization UI,
Middle: Tracking UI-Daytime, Right: Result UI-Sunset)
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS
Because sun exposure is beneficial and detrimental at the
same time, moderating between them can be quite tough.
Thus, we propose a persuasive mobile game, Gingerman
Challenge, to promote players to expose themselves to the
moderate amount of sunlight with practicable and
personalized recommendations. The current contribution of
this study is the design principles and the game design
aiming to encourage players to get adequate sunlight
exposure, which could inform the design of various
persuasive systems that needs to consider deficiency and
overdose. In the future, we plan to complete the whole
components of GC and conduct the field evaluation study to
test its efficacy and appeal.
Acknowledgement: This work is supported by BK21 Plus
Program, Smart Humanity Convergence Center.
REFERENCE
1. Fahrni, T. et al. 2011. Sundroid: solar radiation
awareness with smartphones. Proc. UbiComp ‘11, 365-374
2. Free SunSmart app: http://www.sunsmart.com.au/tools/
interactive-tools/free-sunsmart-app. Accessed: 2014-06-23.
3. Ginde, A.A. et al. 2009. Demographic differences and
trends of vitamin D insufficiency in the US Population,
1988-2004. Arch Intern Med.2009;169(6):626-632.
4. Deborah, K. 2008. Time in the Sun: How Much Is
Needed for Vitamin D? - US News:
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/familyhealth/heart/articles/2008/06/23/time-in-the-sun-how-muchis-needed-for-vitamin-d. Accessed: 2014-06-23.
5. Webb, A.R. and Engelsen, O. 2006. Calculated
Ultraviolet Exposure Levels for a Healthy Vitamin D
Status. Photochemistry and Photobiology. 82.6, 1697-1703.