The Development of a Gamified System for Health Activism as a Graduate Student Project

Abstract

This chapter presents a case of the development, implementation, and iteration of a gamified, graduate-student-driven, collaborative class project about community health activism. The project was founded on three principles: (1) people define, interpret, and modify the meanings of health and wellbeing based on past experiences and in diverse contexts; (2) both learning and iterative design are adaptations to problems; and (3) knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Prior to the class project, the researchers designed a web-based platform for people to publicly recognize and motivate one another for being healthcaring, exhibiting positive attitudes and behaviors toward the health and wellbeing of themselves and others. This chapter shows how students, researchers, and the community refined a definition of healthcaring while trying to change people's health attitudes and behaviors through gamification. After contextualizing the project and discussing its foundations, the chapter offers a discussion on its four phases and results.