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

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.

Gamifying Online News in a Senior Online Community: Insights from Designing and Assessing the Readers’ Experience

“…According to Minge and Cymek (2020), the following gamification elements had high acceptance in older adults: progress visualization and having different levels of difficulty for activities. Age-related impairments should also be considered (Fisk et al 2009;Pak and McLaughlin 2011) when designing these gamified systems, such as cognitive deterioration (e.g., deterioration of working memory), visual difficulties (e.g., increased difficulty in distinguishing color contrasts) and movement impairments (on average, older adults take 1.5 to 2 times longer than youngsters to perform the same task and movement control is less precise).…”

“…Moreover, taking into account the previously described contributions in Step 1-the pre-assessment phase, where it was possible to identify the older adults' motivations regarding online news consumption and the reader's journey defined by the researchers as a result of the survey's responses (see Figure 2)-a three-element gamification system was designed. The latter addresses the awards mechanism, which allows one to recognize user-produced content, while prioritizing social interactions, immediate feedback, progression and rewards (Martinho et al 2020); levels with different degrees of difficulty, as suggested by Minge and Cymek (2020); and a leaderboard, promoting self-motivation and participation by highlighting users' best performances (Conill 2016;Sotirakou and Mourlas 2015).…”

Gamification and customer experience in online retail: a qualitative study focusing on ethical perspective

“…Gamification can add several features to give great experience like try-on, awareness, transparency, and many more which will significantly increase the visit rate on the retailer's website (De Canio et al, 2021a, 2021b. In addition to this, gamification also motivates users to perform a specific activity which brings enhanced customer experience (Minge & Cymek, 2020).…”