Investigating the Potential of Gamification to Improve Seniors’ Experience and Use of Technology

Dietlind Helene Cymek,Michael Minge

doi:10.3390/info11050249

Abstract

A non-negligible proportion of seniors rarely uses new technology. Far too often, these rather tech unexperienced seniors struggle with new soft- or hard-ware, that do not provide easy access. As a result, some seniors avoid or completely desist to further use “these modern technologies” and consequently miss out on the benefits of digital age. Game-inspired design is supposed to be a promising way to overcome some perceived barriers of seniors by providing hedonic value during early interaction. Previous research has shown that game-inspired design is suitable to motivate seniors’ use of Health-IT. To investigate its potential to facilitate the use of information and communication technology (ICT), an experimental study was conducted. The study investigated the appeal of various gamification features, which were embedded in a prototype of an ICT learning software and compared it to a non-gamified version of the software. Results indicate that the concept of gamified ICT learning software appeals to seniors in general, but that the acceptance of different gamification features is quite diverse. A clear-cut superiority of adding gamification to the software was not found. After interacting with both software versions, seniors in around equal parts preferred either the non-gamified version, the gamified version, or could not decide. Those seniors that clearly favored the gamified version were particularly fond of continuous positive feedback and receiving rewards for each task they have accomplished. Whereas the remaining seniors rather disliked the intensive endorsement through these two features and decided against the gamified version, albeit they liked many of the other game features. Our results underline the necessity of following a user-centered design approach when developing game-inspired applications, and the need for an individualized use of gamification elements to meet the needs of the heterogeneous group of senior users.

Highlights

[27], the that were used in the present study mainly focus on eliciting feelings of competence
The presented work demonstrates that senior users are very open-minded about game-inspired design and that, in general, older adults adopt a positive attitude towards gamification elements embedded in useful applications
This is the case for products and services in Health-IT, but can be transferred to other domains, such as learning how to use common information and communication technology (ICT)

Summary

Introduction

Game playing is supposed to be a promising way to elicit emotional experiences [1], to promote meaningfulness and happiness [2,3,4], and to enhance engagement as well as task performance [5]. For this reason, games and game mechanics can be frequently found in our daily activities [6], including the technology we interact with. Promising application domains of game mechanics are educational software [7,8,9], bonus and discount systems [10], productivity and working software [11,12], social media [13,14], as well as healthcare and fitness training [15,16,17,18].

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