The bar is rapidly lifting when it comes to creating a compelling and engaging mobile app. Consumers have hundreds of thousands of native apps to choose from in the native app ecosystems, and attracting and sustaining user engagement is quite a challenge. Some app developers are adding game-like features to apps (gamification) and integrating with popular social media platforms in an attempt to encourage engagement. In this talk we will discuss gamification in general, and take a look at how it is being used in mobile apps. In particular, we will share some of the experiences we've had incorporating game and social features into apps that our lab has deployed.

1. MOBILE GAMIFICATION
Jonathan R. Engelsma, Ph.D.
GVSU School of Computing

2. TOPICS
• About GVSU CIS / MASL
• Motivation
• Gamification and the Power of Play
• Social Persuasion
• Lessons from the Field

3. PADNOS COLLEGE OF
ENGINEERING & COMPUTING
• PCEC consists of:
• School of Computing
• School of Engineering
• 1530 students total
• Undergraduate and
Graduate degree programs.

4. CIS UNDERGRAD PROGRAMS
• ABET Accredited
• Undergraduate Programs:
• Computer Science
• Information Systems
• 550 Students
• ~ 40 CS graduates annually
• ~ 40-50 IS graduates annually

5. CIS GRADUATE PROGRAMS
• Graduate Programs
• Computer Information
Systems
• Medical & Bio-Informatics
• ~ 80 students total
• ~30 MS graduates annually

6. MOBILE APPS & SERVICES LAB
• A multidisciplinary/collaborative
initiative hosted by the GVSU
School of Computing
• Provides an environment that
facilitates learning and discovery in
the area of mobile technology.
• Emphasis on collaboration and
“application research”.
More Info: http://masl.cis.gvsu.edu

7. MOTIVATION

8. “THE DEVICE FORMALLY KNOWN
ASTHE CELL PHONE”

9. THERE’S AN APP FORTHAT...
Source: http://www.pureoxygenmobile.com/how-many-apps-in-each-app-store/

10. THERE’S AN APP FORTHAT...
Attracting and sustaining user engagement is becoming
increasingly difficult endeavor!
Gamification is one technique being used to encourage
sustained engagement.

11. GAMIFICATION ANDTHE
POWER OF PLAY

12. “ACCIDENTAL” POWER OF PLAY
• Case in Point: Ian Bogost’s “Cow Clicker” Game
• partly satire
• partly a theory of today’s social games
• partly an earnest example of a social game
Source: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_cowclicker/all/1
Buy more cows
with “mooney”

13. GAMIFICATION
gamification:
definition: the use of game thinking and
game mechanics in a non-game context
in order to engage users and solve
problems
(It’s really just a buzzword created by clever marketers to get
corporate types to pay $$ to attend summits and
conferences!)

14. GAME MECHANICS: BADGES
• Badging: an idea that
FourSquare lifted from
the Boy Scouts.
• Represent progress/
accomplishment
• often used in lieu of
leveling.

15. LEVELS
• Levels indicate progress.
They inform the user
(and his/her friends)
know where they stand.
• Usually not linear.
• Used by airlines and
credit card issuers for
years!

16. LEADERBOARDS
• Used to help users
make a quick visual
comparison and
hopefully motivate
them to engage.
• Earlier versions actually
disincentivized users!

17. POINTS
Twitter users like
to increase their
number of
followers as it is an
indicator of their
influence.

18. POINTS
Facebook like and
comment counters
are examples of
point systems as
well, and they exist
to encourage
engagement.

19. POINTS
Simple scalar value
behind eBay user
names is a key
motivator - do lots
of transactions and
make sure they are
permanent!

20. QUESTS / CHALLENGES
• Provide specific
directions for
something (hopefully
interesting and
awarding) that users
can do within the app
experience.

21. SOCIAL PERSUASION

22. SOCIAL PERSUASION
An interesting “social phishing” experiment:
Source: From:
Tom
Jaga+c
and
Nathan
Johnson
and
Markus
Jakobsson
and
Filippo
Menczer.
Social
Phishing.
CACM
October
2007.

23. SOCIAL PERSUASION
The results....
Source: From:
Tom
Jaga+c
and
Nathan
Johnson
and
Markus
Jakobsson
and
Filippo
Menczer.
Social
Phishing.
CACM
October
2007.

24. LESSONS FROMTHE FIELD

25. MY “COW CLICK” EXPERIENCE
• Where’s Blue - An addictive “dog catching” game...
• Incentivizing the harvest of Bluetooth addresses in public places
Reference: J. Engelsma, J. Ferrans, and M. Hans. EncounterEngine: Integrating Bluetooth User Proximity Data into Social Applications.Proceedings
of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Wireless & Mobile Computing, Networking & Communication. October 2008.Avignon, France

26. GVSU ART GALLERY APP NOT
GETTING USEDVERY MUCH...
!

27. ART PLAY @ GVSU

28. ART PLAY - SITUATED DISPLAY

29. ART PLAY @ GVSU RESULTS

30. ART PLAY @ GVSU RESULTS

31. THINGS WE LEARNED
• Game content cannibalized the non-game content.
• tight integration of game features in non-game content is
key.
• People will do just about anything for free stuff.
• Situated displays had little quantitative impact, but did have a
qualitative impact on how user’s played the game.

32. SHOP SOCIAL
• Shop Social is a “social”
barcode scanning app.
• Finds relevant video content
for products that you scan.
• Integrates with Facebook.
• Incorporates simple game
mechanics to encourage
engagement.

33. ACTIVITY PER
AUTHENTICATED USER
Authenticated users (10% of overall user population)
produced 43% of all the activities!

34. ENGAGEMENT BY PLATFORM

35. WHAT WE LEARNED
• Authenticated users are substantially more engaged than non-
authenticated users.
• Video content shares better than photos and other types of
static content.
• Significant difference in engagement levels on iOS vs.Android.
(That is diminishing now.)
• Badges really do suck.

36. PARABOLAX
• A study on learner engagement in
serious games.
• Implemented a game that helps
middle school students learn about
quadratic equations.
• Collected data in middle schools
around the country.

37. PARABOLAX

38. RESULTS
• Using ParabolaX helped me understand quadratic functions
better:
76%
24%
Full Version
Agree
Disagree
50%50%
Basic Version
Agree
Disagree
χ2 (1, N = 66) = 4.373, p = 0.037

39. RESULTS
• Using ParabolaX helped me understand quadratic functions
better:
χ2 (1, N = 66) = 5.067, p = 0.024
83%
17%
Occassionally plays digital
games
Agree
Disagree 57%
43%
Frequently plays digital games
Agree
Disagree

40. WHAT WE’VE LEARNED
TO-DATE
• Results to date have not been too promising:
• ParabolaX DID NOT improve students’ ability to
recognize properties and concepts of quadratic functions.
• ParabolaX DID NOT make the study of quadratic
concepts more engaging to students.
• Kid’s that play a lot of video games have high expectations...

41. POCKET PT
• Investigation of the use of
accessorized therapeutic
games to assist physical
therapists who are treating
traumatic brain injury
patients.
• Joint collaboration involving
researchers from GVSU,
Mary Free Bed & Hope
Network.
Video: http://youtu.be/1lNnmoNZ7Mk

42. CREDITS
• Alejo Montoya
• Alex Restrepo
• Juan Mejia
• Andres Solano
• Tom Parker
• Sam Serpoosh
• Kevin Formsma
• Greg Zavitz
• John Golden
• Char Beckmann
• Andres Solano
• Joseph Roth
My colleagues / students who contributed to these apps:
• John Farris
• Cathy Harro
• Nathan Kemler
• Ferris Jumah

43. THANKYOU!!
• Email: Jonathan.Engelsma@gvsu.edu
• Twitter: @batwingd
• Web: http://themobilemontage.com
• GVSU: http://masl.cis.gvsu.edu