SCHOOL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES
GAMIFICATION OF TANGIBLE INTERNET CONNECTED BUTTONS TOWARDS LONG TERM
GOALS
TECHNICAL REPORT 701
LIE MING TANG, JUDY KAY, BOB KUMMERFELD
JUNE 2015
Gamification of tangible internet connected buttons
towards long term goals
Lie Ming Tang
Judy Kay
Bob Kummerfeld
School of Information
Technologies
University of Sydney
School of Information
Technologies
University of Sydney
School of Information
Technologies
University of Sydney
[email protected]@sydney.edu.au
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Long term goals such as healthy ageing, maintaining healthy
diet and exercise demand consistent, repeated efforts over
long periods of time. While such goals are widely recognized as important, many people find it very hard to achieve
them. Some of the key challenges include maintaining motivation, establishing routines, setting personal goals, monitor
progress and forgetfulness. As a way to tackle these challenges, we have designed an internet connected button to
promote self regulation and monitoring towards one’s long
term goals. This is integrated into a framework for applying
Gamification techniques to help enhance user engagement,
maintaining motivation and promote social interaction and
support.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.4 [Information Systems Applications]: Miscellaneous;
D.2.8 [Software Engineering]: Metrics—complexity measures, performance measures
Keywords
Tangible User Interfaces, Gamification, Long Term Goals
1.
INTRODUCTION
Long term goals such as health and well-being are personal goals that demand consistent and repeated effort over
the long term. Common challenges cited by people in health
and well-being domains include lack of time, lack of motivation, lack of self management skills and social support [15]
1
. Forgetfulness is another challenges especially for older
adults with declining mental abilities for tasks such as adherence to medication schedules [13]. Moreover, health and
well-being goals are less immediate by nature and pressing
short term priorities may causes people to lose focus.
1
.
cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/getactive/barriers.html
Figure 1: Hardware configuration and example setting for internet connected goal button.
Research suggest abilities in self regulation including goal
setting, planning, strategies, self monitoring and refection
are strongly correlated with success in learning goals [14].
Moreover, research demonstrates such skills are teachable
and can be improved through scaffolding (i.e., computer
based support) [1].
We designed a tangible user interface in the form of internet connected physical buttons to help people improve their
self regulation towards long term goals.
Tangible user interface (TUI) refers to interfaces where a
user interact with digital information through physical artefacts. TUIs are designed to make digital information accessible through the physical environment [8]. Our internet
connected buttons allow users to embed their goals into their
physical environment, make them a part of the daily routine
and enable peripheral awareness through ambient displays.
In addition, placing these buttons in a social settings such
as the family room or shared spaces can facilitate collaboration and social engagement [16]. Our design links internet
connected buttons to the abstract concept of personal goals.
We achieve this through linking actions and displays of the
buttons with personal goals data. Figure 1, 2 and 3 shows a
prototype of the internet connected buttons and user interface design for linking goals with button actions and display.
A physical internet connected button has several advantages over smart phones or computer tablets. Smart phones
are general purpose, have a variety of functions and store
large numbers of applications. They are generally more
costly and applications have to compete for user attention.
While smart phones are capable of facilitating logging and
reminders, constraints such as battery life means their actual
time with the user is limited [5]. Moreover, smart phones
and tablets are often carried in pockets and bags which do
not attract user attention. Our tangible internet connected
button is a dedicated system. There are less constraints
on mobility, size and battery life can be superior to smart
phones or tables. Since they embody a single goal, can be
placed in context relevant locations, they can be better at
attracting user attention. For example, we can place diet
and eating habit goals in dining room or the kitchen where
food is prepared and consumed. Another advantage of tangible user interfaces in the form of a physical button is that
has an instant appeal to a broad range of users and its affordance easily convey the actions required.
Another contribution of our design is to facilitate the use
of Gamification techniques. Gamification is a relatively new
term described as the use of game thinking and design elements in a non game context [4]. The idea is to apply game
techniques proven successful in engaging players to applications that do not have entertainment as the main objective.
As part of our design, we included several features to facilitate Gamification for motivating users toward their goals.
LED displays on the internet connected buttons supports visual feedback and rewards. They can be used to encourage
user actions or reward users for reaching a goal or completing tasks. They can also be used to apply progression or
loss aversion game mechanics. For example, we could show
daily progress towards a goal or show remaining steps before reaching a desired targets or level (e.g., 10k steps / day).
Configuring the internet buttons as daily goals with a countdown timer can be used to create appointment dynamics.
We believe this combination of tangible internet connected
buttons, goal setting and monitoring tools and Gamification
can help people improve self regulation towards their long
term goals.
2.
RELATED WORK
Tangible user interfaces has been used in a number of
applications to take advantage of our naturally developed
senses to manipulate digital information. For example, the
Marble Answering Machine design [8] use physical marbles
to represent telephone voice messages where users can place
marbles in different places to trigger different actions (e.g.,
to playback). Tangible user interfaces also enable social
communication and collaboration [16]. Placing a tangible
button in a social setting such as the kitchen or eating area
can support group awareness of goals and social interaction.
Successful examples of collaborative interaction can be seen
in tangible tabletop studies where users are able to visualise,
manipulate physical objects and combined with tabletop displays to perform collaborative work [10].
Research have shown the recording of personal behaviour
data can be used to support self monitoring and reflection
[12]. In a study on medication use by older adults, user’s
daily pill use were recorded and then data is presented to
the participants. Users were able to obtain more accurate
awareness of their abilities. Feedback suggest such methods
can trigger self reflection and motivation towards corrective
actions [11]. Through internet connected buttons, we will
allow users to self record their actions towards their goals
and targets. Through a graphical user interfaces, they can
Figure 2: Example user interface for users to create
long term (ends) goals and short term (means) goals.
Figure 3: Example user interface for mapping button actions and displays with goal related data.
monitor and reflect on their performance over the long term.
Gamification techniques designed to promote goal setting
behaviour, self monitoring and self reflection have been successful in promoting long term goals goals such as health
and well-being. For example, Health Month 2 , an online service designed to encourage users to set achievable and time
specific goals, uses a number of Gamification techniques to
promote user self regulation towards goals. They encourage users to be persistent, reward them for reaching goals
and use points and competition game mechanics. The fish
n’ steps study uses digital fish to represent physical activity
and as a reward to promote activity. Similarly, the breakaway system uses an ambient display in the form of a sculpture to represent prolonged sitting in office environment to
encourage people to take short breaks [9]. These examples
demonstrate the potential for applying Gamificaiton in applications aimed to support long term goal.
3.
SYSTEM DESIGN
Our system design includes two components: Tangible,
internet connected buttons and user interfaces for linking
buttons to goals and support Gamification, self monitoring
and reflection.
3.1
2
Tangible Internet Connected Buttons
healthmonth.com
In recent years, rapid advances in microcontrollers, wireless connectivity and power management technologies enable
low cost, mobile and internet connected devices that can run
on batteries over long periods of time.
Our button system include two physical push buttons, one
for logging activity and another to undo, LED lights and
speaker circuits. The button input and output can be linked
to user goals via a graphical user interface. An example is
shown in figure 2. LEDs and speaker is used to provide visual and audio feedback. For goals that require the display
of a counter (e.g., to show serves of fruit eaten so far), 7 segment LED digit displays can be included to serve as a form
of ambient display. The number of digits can be increased
depending on the range required.
A prototype of button hardware configuration is shown
in the figure 1. Button actions and LED displays are connected to a cloud service via a microcontroller with wireless
connectivity. We used the Spark Core from Spark.io 3 for our
prototype. However, there are a number of microcontrollers
with similar functionalities available. This simple hardware
configuration with the current generation of microcontrollers
can theoretically run on battery power for months to years
4
. These features give users the ability to experiment with
different type of goals, different environments and locations.
Tangible interfaces does have limitations and challenges.
For example, due to the limited display space (i.e., LEDs
on a button), we can only display a single goal data. We
can partially address this limitation by combining the interaction with a graphical user interface to view longer term
and historical data. See figure 4 for an example interface
to support long term view of goals data. Another limitation is each button can only represent one goal. Too many
buttons would increase clutter of the physical environment.
This means that users must use such buttons for key goals.
We also need to consider aesthetics and space requirements
in order for such tools to be more widely accepted.
3.2
Graphical User interfaces
Goal setting and self monitoring interfaces is a very large
research area. In this section, we limit our discussion to
the user interface designs for linking of goals to tangible
internet buttons. We will show how this design fit into the
general context of goal setting, self monitoring and reflection
applications for promoting long term goals.
We define means goals as short term goals used to achieve
long term goals as described in [3]. Means goals are relatively
short term, can repeat over time and should be measurable.
A key requirement for the user interface is the ability to configure long term (ends) goals and short term (means) goals.
It should allow users to view current as well as long term
goal history and provide visualisations to support self monitoring and reflection. In figure 2, we show an example of the
user interface using long term healthy diet goal. We selected
daily recommended serves of vegetable, dairy and fruit from
the Australian Dietary Guidelines (2013) 5 as means goals.
Figure 3 provides an example of how button actions and
displays can be linked to goal data. Users can configure
button behaviours based on different goals data, time period, goal achievement levels and user actions. This allow
3
http://spark.io
http://bt.tn
5
http://nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines/publications/n55
4
Figure 4: Example user interface for users to create
long term (ends) goals and short term (means) goals.
users to map the abstract concepts of goals, progress and
performance to the physical properties of the buttons.
The figure 4 shows an example of long term dashboard for
viewing goal performance over a 2 year period. It is important to note that there is potential for this interface design to
facilitate different visualisations of the historical data. However, discussion self monitoring and reflection visualisations
is outside the scope of this paper.
3.3
Gamification Designs
Research have shown audio and visual stimulus can be
effective rewards towards desired behaviour. The success of
slot machines and arcade games where user actions generate
audio and visual feedback is well known [7] . Drawing on
this, we allow users to link audio and visual rewards with
logging and interaction with goal buttons. For example,
users can choose to show a led flash each time a user push a
button to log a goal event which provides instant feedback
and reward. They can set the button to play a short musical
tone when they complete a short term goal and play a song
as well as flash LED when achieving a long term goal. This
approach is similar to badges used in fitbit 6 except we use
sound and visual reward for achievements. Figure 3 show
an example configuration for a weekly achievement reward
(i.e., flash LED) and a monthly reward of playing a song
(i.e., play ‘we are the champions’).
In addition to visual and audio rewards, other game mechanics are possible through our design. We list below four
examples to illustrate mechanics / dynamics that can be
achieved through this system.
3.3.1
Countdown Timer
Instead of an increment counter, the LED digit display
can be used as a count down timer to create time pressure
dynamics. Users can set time critical goals where action is
needed within a time period e.g., before noon daily or by end
of every month. This type of game mechanics can create a
sense of urgency to complete actions before countdown ends.
It is very successful in game applications for triggering user
actions towards goals that require regular engagement [17].
3.3.2
Level Up Button
Physical activity promotion applications such as fitbit encourage users to perform additional actions or activity when
they see that they are very close to certain levels. This
6
fitbit.com
type of game mechanic has been found very effective [6]
where people increase activity simply to reach the next level.
We can create this game dynamic by configuring the LED
counter to show remaining steps or actions required to reach
a target level instead of counting increments.
3.3.3
Goals Leaders board
Leaders boards are often used to reward achievers and encourage others to improve. A potential configuration is to
place goal buttons from different users with common goal
together in a social setting e.g., common area. This configuration can act as an ambient display for showing relative
progress and performance.
3.3.4
Group goals to promote social interaction
Research suggest leader boards may not appeal to all type
of users [2] and may demotivate users who are falling behind
[17]. An alternative is to create social and collaboration
through group goals. For example, a family might set group
goals of eating healthy and staying active. They may configure goal buttons to track the total vegetable and fruit
eaten and number of shared physical activities. They can
set daily, weekly and monthly targets and configure rewards
based on reaching these levels and place the buttons in a
common family area.
4.
DISCUSSIONS & FUTURE WORK
When applying Gamification, practitioners suggest careful
design of user experience in the system as whole. Considerations such as the type of players [2], intrinsic and extrinsic
value systems, on-boarding process and managing flow [17]
are important to success.
There is also opportunity to integrate these internet enabled buttons with other applications to expand its capabilities. For example, we can connect button actions as well as
goal performance to IFTTT 7 to trigger notifications, update
your doctor or share achievements.
5.
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