1. Using gamification to inspire new citizen science
volunteers
Anne Bowser1
, Derek Hansen2
, Yurong He1
, Carol Boston1
, Matthew Reid3
, Logan
Gunnell2
, Jennifer Preece1
University of Maryland
8082 Baltimore Avenue
College Park, MD 20740
abowser1@umd.edu
Brigham Young University
E Campus Drive
Provo, UT 84604
dlhansen@byu.edu
Pariveda Solutions
2811 McKinney Ave.
Dallas, TX 75204
matthewreid007@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Gamifying citizen science campaigns has the potential to
further engage existing volunteers, as well as to attract new
contributors. By evaluating Biotracker, a gamified mobile
application that gathers plant phenology data, we explored
the feasibility of engaging a secondary group of
Millennials, who are notorious technology enthusiasts, with
a gamified citizen science app. We also explored the
potential benefits that using an application might offer
these users. Results suggest that gamification is key to
attracting many Millennials, as are social motivations and,
to a lesser extent, education. Potential benefits to these
participants include an increased awareness of community
and an increase in domain knowledge.
Author Keywords
Gamification, location-based games, citizen science,
crowdsourcing, Biotracker, Project Budburst, Millennials
ACM Classification Keywords
K.8.0. General: Games
INTRODUCTION
Gamification is a powerful design tool with the potential to
enhance user experience and engagement with non-game
applications. While the canonical example of gamification
may be the use of badges by service marketing teams [18],
the motivational affordances of games are also utilized in
non-corporate contexts such as education [6], community
trading [14] and citizen sensing [7].
Citizen science is another promising context for
gamification. Specifically, researchers have identified
“rewards, such as online gaming badges and competitions”
as a promising method for motivating and retaining
volunteers [20]. Examples of extant projects that utilize
gamification in citizen science are Tiger Nation [19], which
tracks the movements of endangered tigers, and Happy
Sort, which classifies images of species such as moths and
sharks [24]. However, with those notable exceptions,
serious games (i.e., stand-alone games with a primary
purpose other than entertainment) such as Foldit
(http://fold.it/portal/) or Zooniverse (www.zooniverse.org/)
are far more prevalent than gamified apps in the citizen
science domain. Since not all tasks lend themselves to the
creation of full games, understanding how to effectively
gamify citizen science apps is of great importance.
This paper reports on our experiences evaluating
Biotracker, a gamified mobile application for citizen
science. Biotracker was developed to feed plant phenology
data to the Project Budburst database (www.budburst.org);
as such, our primary user group is citizen scientists who
already contribute data to Project Budburst or similar
campaigns. By gamifying the Biotracker app, we hope to
engage this user group more fully, as well as attract a
secondary group of Millennials – the focus of this paper.
Engaging users who are not currently active citizen
scientists has several potential benefits. Additional data can
be collected for scientists. Volunteers may reap benefits
including an increased knowledge of the scientific method
and heightened community involvement [4]. Some critics
argue that gamification is a simple marketing tool that
manipulates users without their knowledge [2], so
establishing that benefits exist to the users of a gamified
app is a key ethical consideration in the design and
development of gamified mobile applications—especially
when these users might not be motivated to use an
application because of its content alone.
With these considerations in mind, we evaluated an
advanced prototype of the gamified Biotracker app with a
group of 71 undergraduates from the Millennial generation.
We address the following research questions:
• Can a gamified citizen science app engage
technology enthusiasts from the millennial
generation?
• Which aspects of the gamified app would be most
motivating to those who are likely to use it?
• What potential benefits could this group receive
from use of the gamified app?
Our work suggests that gamifying a mobile app for citizen
science does have the potential to engage Millennials.
These users express social motivations such as socialization
and community membership, motivations relating to
personal benefit such as fun and education, and motivations
relating to gamification such as competition and reward in
the form of badges earned. Potential sources of value for
these users include an increased awareness of community
and a growing knowledge of topics such as plant biology.

2. BACKGROUND
Gamification
One common definition of gamification is “the use of
elements of game design in non-game contexts” [10].
While this succinctly describes the method that
gamification deploys, other researchers choose to
emphasize the experience that gamification gives rise to.
Thus, a second definition considers gamification “a process
of enhancing a service with affordances for gameful
experiences in order to support user’s overall value
creation” [15]. Context is a third key to understanding
gamification: a user is motivated by a gamified system only
when gamification makes salient a user’s real, intrinsic
motivational needs [9]. Therefore, designers of gamified
apps should understand both the motivational affordances
of games and the domain of interest (e.g., citizen science).
Researchers have identified a number of motivations that
drive the users of gamified apps. People use gamified apps
because they are fun or relate to a personal interest [13].
They use these apps to socialize, whether social activities
are casual and temporary, contribute to longer-term
relationships, or evoke community membership [13, 16,
27]. Users of gamified apps are also motivated by the
opportunity to discover new things [27], to be part of a
meaningful story [13], to compete with others [27], and to
achieve one’s personal best [13, 28].
Citizen Science
Citizen science is a collaborative process in which
volunteers work with professional scientists to study real-
world problems [4]. Citizen science activities are often
structured around campaigns, where volunteers gather and
annotate a specific type of data. Some campaigns are
bounded by a specific time or place. ReClam the Bay
(www.reclamthebay.org) is seasonal and located around
Barnegat Beach, New Jersey. Other campaigns, such as
eBird (www.ebird.org), perpetually solicit data from citizen
scientists in diverse geographic zones.
Because citizen science facilitates efforts such as large-
scale data collection that would otherwise be impractical or
impossible, its value to scientists is clear. Its value to
volunteers is no less significant. Based on the Framework
for Evaluating Impacts of Informal Science Education [12]
used by NSF-funded projects, researchers [4] identify a
number of benefits for citizen science volunteers. These
include increased knowledge of scientific content and
processes; increased engagement (e.g., with the scientific
community); skill development (e.g., study design);
improved attitudes toward science; increased time spent
outdoors, citizen action, and responsible environmental
behavior; and other impacts.
Motivations of citizen science volunteers are complex, and
change over time [26]. They include fun or personal
interest [21, 25, 26], the desire to learn more about a
subject [25], and the thrill of discovery [25]. Citizen
science volunteers appreciate the opportunity to be part of a
community [25, 26], although motivations for socialization
may exceed motivations for community recognition [21].
Volunteers exhibit altruistic motivations ranging from a
general desire to help [25], a desire to contribute to science
[21, 25], and a desire to help one’s community [26].
Table 1 summarizes the motivations of users of gamified
apps and citizen science volunteers outlined in the prior
sections. It is necessarily general and may not apply to
specific scenarios (e.g., educational games; competitive
citizen science activities), but it does illustrate that both
groups share some motivations, while differing in others.
Motivation Gamers
Cit. Sci.
Volunteers
Fun (intrinsically rewarding) X X
Personal interest X X
Learning or education X
Contributing to science X
Contributing to public good X
Community involvement X X
General socialization X X
Personal performance X
Competition with peers X
Table 1. Motivations of gamers and citizen scientists
METHODS
After describing the Biotracker app we explain the methods
used for this study. Note that prior work evaluated an
earlier prototype of Biotracker with different users [3].
The Biotracker app
Biotracker is a gamified mobile application designed to
gather plant phenology data for Project Budburst. Plant
phenology data measures the timing of events, such as
when a perennial begins to bud or when a tree’s leaves fall.
It is valuable to scientists who study the dissemination of
allergens and global climate change. Biotracker was
developed with PLACE, an iterative co-design approach to
Prototyping Location, Activities, and Collective Experience
over time, as detailed elsewhere [3].
In Biotracker, the central artifact that users interact with is
a floracache, or a plant (for example, a specific oak tree in
front of a college library) designated as part of the game.
Floracaches are mapped in the application so that any user
can find them. Biotracker supports two main types of
interaction: creating floracaches of new plants, and
checking into floracaches that already exist. Users who
create a floracache must visit, photograph, and identify a
plant, a task that requires some plant expertise. In contrast,
any Biotracker user with a location-enabled mobile device
can “check in” to existing floracaches. Checking in
involves three optional tasks. First, users check a box to
indicate the plant’s current phenological state, such as “all
leaves withered,” or “full flowering.” Second, users can
comment on an aspect of the floracache. Third, users can
photograph the floracache.

3. Several activities rely upon the two primitive types of
interaction: creating caches and checking into them.
Budding Scientist, one of the core activities, requires that
users check into a floracache and answer plant phenology
questions (e.g., is it blooming?). Invasive Patroller asks
users to create a cache of an invasive species; Friendly
Floracacher requires users to check in with another person.
Biotracker is gamified primarily through the use of badges
that are placed on the virtual profile pages of users (Figure
1). Each badge is associated with a different activity. For
example, users who complete the Budding Scientist activity
earn the Budding Scientist badge. Floracaching also
includes a leaderboard listing the ten players who have
checked into the most caches at any given time. When a
user hits the #1 spot on the leaderboard, he or she is
automatically awarded a Leader of the Pack badge. In this
way, players are rewarded for their general use of
Biotracker and for completing specific activities.
Participants
Millennials, or Americans born after 1980, are
characterized as “digital natives” [23] or “leading
technology enthusiasts” who “embrace all things digital”
[22]. Generally, millennials use technology more frequently
than their elders (94% own a mobile phone, compared to a
national average of 86%). They also use technology
differently: while no more likely than older peers to use
email, this group is twice as likely to play video games
[22]. Finally, millennials have more positive attitudes
towards technology: 74% believe it makes life easier,
compared to a national average of 64%. Because of these
differences—higher mobile phone use, greater attraction to
video games, positive attitudes towards technology—we
believe that this group may be open to using a gamified
application for citizen science. This view is shared by other
citizen science researchers who argue that games and
technology can be used to appeal to “younger and more
ethnically diverse participants” [20].
The 71 participants who evaluated Biotracker are
Millennial college students at a large state university (all
were between 18 and 24 years of age). These included 55
men and 16 women who self-reported the following
racial/ethnicity categories: African American (non-
Hispanic): 10, Asian/Pacific Islander: 25, Caucasian (non-
Hispanic): 35, Latino: 5, and Other: 1. Most were self-
declared engineering or computer science majors.
The evaluation of the Biotracker app was the culminating
activity of a five-week unit on citizen science. Our research
team spent one class (1.5 hours) with the students each
week. At the beginning of the unit students were surveyed
about their experience with citizen science. Most were
unfamiliar with the topic and none had participated in
campaigns. The first four weeks of the unit introduced
students to citizen science and gave them practice as
participants. Therefore, by the time students evaluated the
Biotracker app they were more familiar with citizen science
than would otherwise be typical.
Evaluation
Prior to evaluating the Biotracker app, students were given
information about downloading and installing the app and
encouraged to bring their smartphones to class. Researchers
prepared by setting up a large number of Floracaches in the
vicinity of the classroom building. Once in class, students
participated in a brief discussion about plant phenology and
the various gamified features of the app before going
outside for 30 minutes of free play with the application.
Figure 1. User Profile Screen (left) and Badges (right)
Data collection and analysis
After using the Biotracker application, participants
completed a 15-question online survey as a homework
assignment graded as completed/ not completed. The
survey began with open-ended questions such as “What
makes [certain] activities appealing?” Participants also
answered the questions, “How likely are you to use the
Biotracker app in the future?” and “How likely are you to
participate in other kinds of citizen science activities?”
General motivations were assessed with the open-ended
question, “What would motivate you to use the Biotracker
application or participate in a similar activity?” To assess
specific motivations, participants were given 11 statements
and asked, “Please indicate how motivating you would find
each reason for using the Biotracker app.” Nine of these 11
statements correspond directly to the motivations presented
in Table 1; for example, “fun” was assessed with the survey
item “Using the Biotracker app is fun.” The remaining 2
statements, “Earning badges is motivating” and
“Completing activities is motivating” were designed to
assess perceptions of gamification. Participants also
answered demographic questions and questions about their
experience with citizen science and natural observations.
Qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis, a
method of searching across a dataset to find repeated
patterns of meaning [5]. While similar to inductive
techniques such as grounded theory, thematic analysis
differs by allowing for a researcher’s existing theoretical or
analytical interest in the data. Thematic analysis is a six-
step process where researchers familiarize themselves with

4. the data, generate initial codes, search for themes, review
themes, define themes, and report themes. This iterative
process allowed us to move from stage to state as needed.
Quantitative analysis focused on the question about the 11
motivators discussed earlier. Answers were given on a 5-
point Likert scale, with choices listed as “very motivating,”
“somewhat motivating,” “neutral,” “somewhat
demotivating,” and “very demotivating”. For many
questions, the most extreme choices—“very motivating”
and “very demotivating”—had a very small number of
responses. To facilitate analysis, these answers were
therefore collapsed into two categories: “very motivating”
and “somewhat motivating” were grouped together as
“motivating,” while “very demotivating” and “somewhat
demotivating” were grouped together as “demotivating.”
This process of collapsing or combining Likert scale
categories is a common data transformation [1]. This
transformation can be valuable when participants are
hesitant to select extreme options, as with our data set.
Table 2. Independent t-test results
Our primary interest was to understand which motivations
were salient for those who would potentially use the
Biotracker app, as compared to those who would not. To
assess this, we grouped participants into two categories:
those who reported being somewhat or very likely to use
the app in the future (n=10), and those who reported being
somewhat or very unlikely to use the app in the future
(n=37), removing data from those who were indifferent
(n=24). A similar approach was used to evaluate different
motivations for those willing to contribute to other citizen
science projects (n=36) versus those who were not (n=15),
ignoring neutral responses (n=20). Because responses to
questions created ordinal data, Mann-Whitney U tests were
used to identify significant differences [1].
FINDINGS
Only 10 participants (14%) were “likely” or “very likely”
to use the app in the future. 24 (34%) were undecided, and
37 (52%) were “very unlikely” or “somewhat unlikely”. In
contrast, 36 (51%) were “likely” or “very likely” to
participate in other kinds of citizen science activities (20, or
28%, were undecided; only 15, or 21%, were “very
unlikely” or “somewhat unlikely”). We believe that the
relatively small proportion of users who were “likely” or
“very likely” to use the app in the future is indicative of
problems with location-awareness on certain devices, and
the use of unfamiliar vocabulary such as Latin names for
plants. We explore this further in our discussion.
Our remaining findings are grouped by the motivations
presented in Table 1. The first seven motivations are
discussed individually; the following four closely relate to
one another and are discussed together. Table 2
summarizes the quantitative results.
Fun (intrinsically rewarding)
Participants who would use Biotracker (U= 146.5, p< .01)
and participants who would contribute to other citizen
science projects (U= 391.0, p< .01) both considered “fun”
a significant motivation. Data from open-ended questions
reveals three types of “fun”: creativity, exploration of a
local environment, and relaxation.
Noting creativity as a common thread across his favorite
activities, one participant wrote, “They all involve being
able to perform a concrete action or set of actions that
create a physical result. It allows for the ability to create
something as well as merely observing native flora.”
Similarly, a user said that the Paparazzi activity (which
asks a user to take the best photograph of a cherry tree) is
fun because “It allows for creativity in photography. I’m
not an expert photographer by any means, but I’d like to
achieve having the best picture of a tree.”
Participants also had fun exploring their local environment.
“Locovore will teach us about something unique to our
area”; “Why not appreciate native flora from your area?”
Seasonality, a function of location, also comes into play: “I
think Cherry Blossom Blitz is a great idea in April—it
ensures the opportunity to go out and view a good Cherry
tree blossoming during the appropriate season.” This was
especially important for participants who already had a
strong local identity—as one expressed, “I am native to
Maryland so touring native species is something I would
prefer because it is most relatable to myself.”
Motivation
Total
(n=71)
Would use
Biotracker
Would
contribute to
other projects
Is fun
36
(51%)
U= 146.5 U= 391.0
p< 0.01 p< 0.01
Supports my
interest in plants
26
(27%)
U= 287.5 U= 502.5
p= 0.76 p= 0.12
Helps me learn
about plants and
their environment
41
(58%)
U=134.0 U= 501.5
p< 0.01 p= 0.11
Contributes
valuable scientific
data
42
(59%)
U= 201.0 U= 460.0
p= 0.07 p< 0.04
Contributes to the
public good
45
(63%)
U= 234.0 U= 456.5
p= 0.21 p< 0.04
Can connect me to
a community of
similar people
31
(44%)
U= 152.5 U= 536.0
p< 0.01 p= 0.26
Could be a fun
social activity
31
(44%)
U= 144.5 U= 472.5
p< 0.01 p= 0.06
Doing my best is
motivating
34
(48%)
U= 230.0 U= 556.5
p= 0.19 p= 0.37
Competing with
my peers is
motivating
34
(48%)
U= 180.0 U= 462.5
p< 0.04 p= 0.07
Earning badges is
motivating
33
(36%)
U= 154.5 U= 542.0
P< 0.01 p= 0.28
Completing
activities is
motivating.
44
(62%)
U= 202.0 U= 507.0
p= 0.06 p= 0.12

5. Finally, participants would enjoy using the application “if it
provided an experience for me that was [de-stressing] /
refreshing, and I had something to gain. For myself, a gain
would entail an enjoyable/relaxing interaction with
nature.” Another participant would
“just want to get out
there and enjoy nature while I do things, not worry.”
In
some cases, engaging with a local environment can be
relaxing in itself. “To me appreciating nature is a way to
destress and taking the time to look and appreciate native
Maryland trees is appealing. This is especially due to the
fact that I’m a Marylander and lived in a rural area where
trees were abundant and gave a sense of peace and home.”
Personal interest
Participants who would use the Biotracker app were not
more motivated by an interest in plants (U= 287.5, p= 0.76)
than those who would not use it. Some simply considered
plants boring: “I would be pretty unmotivated to participate
because the subject matter does not interest me to any real
degree.” Others thought that the plants chosen as
floracaches (reflecting the plants in the Project Budburst
database) lacked novelty: “Maple trees are everywhere.
That’s like getting excited every time you see a
dandelion…you can’t hype up generic, boring trees.” Users
would be motivated to use the app “if it related to activities
that I find interesting.” For example, “if a similar activity
was created that matched my interests, I would be more
inclined to participate…instead of caching wildlife, an
activity can be created to cache Maryland landmarks.”
Learning or education
Participants who reported that they were likely to use the
Biotracker app (U= 134.0, p< .01) were motivated to learn
about plants and their environments. Some were motivated
by the general “educational potential of the application”;
others expressed interest in certain plants (“I don’t know
very much about Magnolias, so I’m curious about how
different Magnolias vary.”). However, educational benefits
were rarely the first thing a user mentioned and are likely to
be a secondary motivation. One user, who noted that their
primary motivation would be competition, later added, “it’s
also nice to learn about the plants.” Similarly, after writing
“I enjoy looking and enjoying nature especially the cherry
blossoms,” a student added “I can also learn more about
them by identifying them so I know what I’m appreciating.”
The secondary role of education as a motivator may be due
to the fact that most participants are not interested in plants
enough to want to learn about them in the absence of other
benefits: “I have some interest, but not enough motivation
to go out with a field guide and start teaching myself.”
Contributing to science
As one participant writes, “I would be motivated if I was
helping someone use these statistics for a project because it
is going to a good cause. I would also be motivated to
participate in a similar activity because it can help
scientists very much.” Contributing to science was not a
significant motivator for those who are likely to use the
Biotracker app (U= 201.0, p= 0.07) compared to those who
would not, though it may have been with a larger sample
size. Some users recognized the value of the app to
scientists, though that was not enough in itself to warrant
their participation: “The only time I would use this
particular app is if it were part of a competition. I am not
particularly interested in plants, so while I understand that
the app is very useful, and will certainly be helpful to
scientists in the field, I would probably not use it.” Others
may not have recognized the value of the app to scientists,
since the contribution to science was not made explicit
enough: “If there was an app that provided data to a
worthwhile cause I would probably participate.” Indeed,
this may explain why those who would contribute to other
citizen science projects were more likely to express this
motivation than those who would not (U= 460.0, p< 0.04).
Contributing to public good
Contributing to the public good was not a significant
motivator for those who are likely to use the Biotracker app
(U= 234.0, p= 0.24). Again, this may be because the app
does not provide a clear “explanation of benefits to
society;” as one participant wondered, “How much is the
potential impact for society?” Those who did express a
motivation to contribute to the public generally evoked a
localized public such as other users of the Biotracker app
(“Creating a new Floracache is appealing because then I
will have contributed something that everyone else can
use”) or other college campus residents. On the later point,
one participant wrote, “Maple Marker interests me because
it can help with the maintenance of the campus.” Another
would be motivated “If a project can have a big impact on
campus life.” Those who would contribute to other citizen
science projects were more likely to express this motivation
than those who would not (U=456.5, p<0.04).
Community involvement
Community involvement is a significant motivation for
likely users of the Biotracker app (U= 152.5, p< .01). For
some of these users, community involvement could spur
individual engagement: “Seeing others around me use it
would motivate me to join them and contribute;” “The app
would probably have to be popular with my friends so we
would all use it.” Other users would be motivated to use
the app if could support existing community membership:
“If the app became popular among my peers, I’d definitely
use it to fit in with the crowed.” While the majority of our
participants seem to consider their group of a friends a
community, a few express the desire to interact with people
of similar mindsets: “I’d love to spend time in the company
of someone who I can relate to by appreciating nature. I
think it’s rare to find friends nowadays who are a bit
adventurous and are willing to get out there and appreciate
nature, but I feel like I could establish a deeper connection
with someone who shares that interest with me.”
General Socialization
Socialization – which designates social activity on a
smaller scale than community involvement, or “interacting
with other people”—is a powerful motivation for people

6. more likely to use the Biotracker app (U= 144.5; p< .01).
Specifically, users would be motivated to use the
application “if I could make it a peer activity- use it to
spend time with friends, or spend time with a romantic
partner.” Socialization can also enhance other motivations,
such as the fun of exploring nature: “I would like to be able
to use this app socially, so on certain occasion, I could not
only engage with nature for a benefit, but I could also
interact with others for social interaction, which would be
another benefit.” A similar user was motivated by “The
opportunity to be with friends. The chance to get to explore
nature and share the beauty with other people.”
Gamification
Four motivations related to gamification. “Doing my best is
motivating” (U=230.0, p= 0.19) and “completing activities
is motivating” (U= 202.0, p= 0.06) are not significant for
participants who would use Biotracker app; “competing
with my peers is motivating” (U= 180.0, p< .04) and
“earning badges is motivating” (U= 154.5, p< .01) are.
None of the four motives related to gamification were
significant for users who would participate in other citizen
science projects. These motivations are explored further in
the qualitative analysis presented below.
Responses to survey questions such as “What would
motivate you to use the Biotracker app or participate in a
similar activity?” confirm that gamification is a primary
motivation for this user group. One explains: “I guess if
this app was made into a game more than anything I would
use it more.” Another echoes, “Something that would
motivate me to use a similar app in the future would be the
gamification characteristic that this one employed. It makes
it much more fun and less tedious to participate in…citizen
science.” In fact, many users advocated for more
gamification: “If it was even more game-like that would be
great, because I got bored with the app.”
Regarding specific motivations, some participants found
motivation in competition “between friends, competition
amongst strangers.” As one wrote, “Introducing
competition to citizen science applications can have a
lasting impact on the overall effectiveness of the
application. These are the types of things that pique the
interest of the user.” An almost universal belief prevails
among these users that “Everyone wants to be leader of the
pack,” i.e., occupy the number one spot on the leaderboard:
“Being the person with the most Floracaches is a goal to
reach so it’s appealing because like any mobile game like
system, there’s always a task to reach even if it takes a few
times to get that tile/ award.”
Others were motivated by the “Personal satisfaction of
getting badges” and noted, “the badges are a nice touch,
and I think they should be expanded for future users.”
Users also wrote about the “satisfaction of completing
activities,” although such comments were less frequent
than assessments of badges or competition.
The motivations related to gamification that were not
significant included “doing my best” and “completing
activities” (though the latter may be significant with a
larger sample). In retrospect, we believe that this is due to
our failure to include game elements such as quests that
really challenge users to perform outside of peer
competition. It may also be true that, due to the social way
the app is used, peer competition is just more compelling.
DISCUSSION
Our findings suggest that the answer to our first research
question, whether gamifying a mobile application for
citizen science could engage an additional user group of
Millennials, is a qualified affirmative. Survey results
indicate that people who are likely to use the Biotracker
application in the future are significantly more motivated
by gamification in the form of “earning badges” and
“competing with my peers” then those who are not likely to
use the app. We also found support in our qualitative data
from users who would “use the app if it were in a game
format because that would interest me” and believe
gamification “makes it much more fun and less tedious to
participate in…citizen science”
On the other hand, half of our participants reported that
they were “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” to use
the Biotracker app in the future. There were two main
reasons why some students would not use the app. First,
our prototype had some problems recognizing location on
select mobile devices. As one frustrated user writes, “The
application would be much better if location was
accurate.” Users also disliked the use of scientific names
for genus and species, and asked developers to “make it
more friendly to people who have little knowledge of
flora…I didn’t understand much of the Latin names.”
These usability issues are relatively easy to resolve. It is
also clear that participants will only use a gamified citizen
science app if doing so is convenient: “If I could use an app
in a way that did not interfere with my daily activities I
would absolutely participate in citizen science projects. I
don’t want to have to go out of my way to use the app.” A
second participant similarly noted, “When choosing a
citizen science activity to complete, I would most likely
choose one that is interesting, but that is not too time
consuming.” This issue is much harder to resolve.
We draw two general conclusions from these combined
results. First, while most Millennials may not embrace a
gamified citizen science app, a significant portion may—
and they will likely engage with the application precisely
because it is gamified. This claim is supported by
quantitative data that shows our Millennials find earning
badges and peer competition motivating, and by
elaborations offered in response to open-ended survey
questions. In contrast, users who were likely to participate
in other citizen science projects expressed established
motivations such as “contribute valuable scientific data”
and “contribute to the public good.” Therefore, a new user
group of Millennials who might not find the traditional
motivations of citizen scientists inspiring may be willing to
engage with a citizen science application if it is gamified.

7. Second, because of their expectation that technology can
and should make life easier [22], this user group may not be
as patient with a gamified citizen science app as the citizen
scientists who are already motivated to volunteer their data.
Therefore, it is especially important that gamification is
pervasive and well designed, usability issues are resolved,
and tasks are clearly structured and at easy to understand.
Research question two asks, “Which aspects of the
gamified app would be most motivating to those who are
likely to use it?” As discussed above, gamification can be a
strong motivator, particularly in the form of badges or
competition with peers. Millennials who are likely to use
the Biotracker app are also influenced by motivations
related to enjoyment or other personal benefits, namely
“fun” and “learn about plants and their environment.”
Finally, for this user group the desire to be social is acute,
and should be supported by an application’s design.
As one user suggested, the app did not provide a clear
“explanation of benefits to society.” One way to resolve
this issue could be to design badges that reward users who
contribute to a dataset used in scientific research. A list of
publications using Budburst data could also be included in
the application. These and similar changes could help
attract some of the people who were willing to participate
in other citizen science projects, but not the Biotracker app.
Regarding our final research question, “What potential
benefits could this group receive from use of the gamified
app,” we identify two main types of benefits. The first is
Friedman’s “engagement or interest in a community,” a
clear motive of our survey respondents [12]. This is
exemplified by the participant who writes, “[knowing]
what has been going on over the local area may encourage
people to go see a nice looking patch of flowers or an
interesting tree that others may have cached.” The existing
literature on citizen science also supports the importance of
place as a motivation; one survey of Neighborhood
Nestwatch participants found that 83% reported an
increased awareness and sense of place [11]. In this way, a
sense of place or community is both a motivation for
engaging with Biotracker or similar applications and a
benefit to participation that grows over time. A closely
related benefit listed by Friedman [12] is “time outdoors.”
Again, this is both a motivation and a benefit for Biotracker
users who “enjoy looking at nature and being outside.”
Second, participants benefited from “knowledge of
content” [12]. This is illustrated by comments like “It’s
also nice to learn about the plants” and “could be
interesting to learn about the species in your state, could
learn the most from these activities,” although the
application could admittedly do a better job providing
educational material (“Fun facts” about each plant are
being developed for the final release). The support for
“knowledge of content” is consistent with the findings of
other citizen science researchers, which suggests that in
some cases as many as 90% of citizen science volunteers
report increased knowledge about the species they observe
[11]. However, it was somewhat unexpected among the
given population who did not self-identify as being
intrinsically interested in plants. Perhaps it was the “no
pressure environment in which you can learn something
new,” which helped instill this interest in plants.
It may be possible to help transition Millennials into more
active citizen scientists. The interest that some showed in
learning (even as a secondary motivation) may, with
guidance, transform into genuine interest in scientific
content and contributions. Researchers suggest encouraging
learning with “measurable, attainable, relevant” goals [17].
These learning goals could be supported with sequential
“plant education” activities and badges.
Limitations
This exploratory research is aimed at establishing which
gamification techniques are likely to engage Millennials.
This research cannot claim, conclusively, that a gamified
mobile app can engage these users, or can engage them
over extended periods of time (a major concern in both
gamification and citizen science [2,26]). An experimental
manipulation comparing engagement between a gamified
and a natural application would be a logical next step in
confirming that gamification can, in fact, make a citizen
science application appealing to this user group.
Participants were first year college students in the
culminating phase of a 5-week unit on citizen science. It is
unlikely that most Millennials will have the same
familiarity with citizen science as our sample, who attended
four prior lectures on the topic. Therefore, responses to
motivational prompts such as The Biotracker app
“contributes valuable scientific data” and “contributes to
the public good” may be overly positive. Without further
evidence we cannot generalize data on these motivations to
other groups. Similarly, we cannot generalize our findings
to technology enthusiasts from other age groups.
Conclusions
We evaluated Biotracker, a gamified mobile application for
citizen science, with 71 undergraduate students from the
millennial generation. Our evaluation assessed whether
Millennials would use a gamified citizen science app, what
might motivate them to do so, and what benefits they might
derive from participation. We found that while not all of
our participants were likely to use our application in the
future, those who would were attracted to elements of
gamification (competition with peers, earning badges),
social motivations (community membership, socialization),
and personal benefits such as fun and education.
Participants who would use our gamified application did
not express motivations such as the desire to contribute to
science and the desire to contribute to a public good that
are held by traditional citizen science volunteers [21, 25,
26]. This suggests that gamification may reach new
audiences for citizen science campaigns. We also found
that Millennials can benefit from using a gamified citizen
science app through informal science education and
increased community engagement.

8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank our participants, their instructor,
our colleagues at Project Budburst including Sandra
Henderson and Dennis Ward, and the Biotracker team. This
work was supported by NSF grant #SES 0968546
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