Social Computing Gamification in Mobile Applications
December 15, 2016 | Author: Kathlyn Kaye Sanchez | Category: N/A
Short Description
Explains Gamification in Mobile Application and applying it in non-gaming world....
Description
Chapter 1: Introduction Application 1: FourSquare Foursquare is an application for mobile phones allowing users to check in into places they are in at the moment whether it’s on a restaurant, spa, mall, school, or any kind of place listed on the map. The users could also create new landmarks on the map if it is not yet added on the database of places. It supports Android, Iphone, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and other smartphones. In addition to its checkin feature, there are also real life deals upon checking in such as discounts, freebies, or free services if the place implements a foursquare social merchandise tool, correspondingly, lots of people are already using this application because of its powerful features and freebies. The most recent statistics done in January 2012 is showing the community is over 15 million people worldwide, coupled with over 1.5 billion checkins, and with millions more every day; businesses are over 750,000 using the Merchant Platform, and employees are over 100 between headquarters in New York, NY and an office in San Francisco, CA. It was founded by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai while meeting at the same office place in New York. They started encoding the first prototype of FourSquare in 2007 then it was completed in the year 2008 at Dennis’ kitchen table. Then the final program was released in March 2009 by South at Southwest Interactive at Austin, Texas. A list of places they went when they are working on the program is provided by the FourSquare founders and it is posted on the web at https://foursquare.com/dens/list/abriefhistoryoffoursquare. It is publicized where they stayed while making the program, thus, people who are interested on looking at the roots of FourSquare are free to know and visualize. The company is funded by Union Square Ventures, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital and a handful of angel investors, not to mention, they are also open for hire of capable employees in developing the application so fullpledged programmers will most likely visit the site and inquire. More information is posted on their About section, and for up to tune random information users could also check FourSquares blog for more details. A brief roundup of FourSquare’s features and capabilities will entice people, who are not familiar with FourSquare, into using it and eventually will come a liking on it. Other than its checkin tool, it also has a listing tool wherein the user will handout a list of places preferable restaurants he/she visited based on an activity (e.g. top 10 restaurants) for viewing users to see. Not only that, users could generate a to do task on the list by following it and clicking the done button if all of the places enumerated are accomplished, likewise, users could also click on the done button under the thumbnail of the place to show progress on the current list they are subscribed on. A reward system is also offered by earning points and by ranking up based on the checkin the user has progressed so far. All the more, people will get hooked into checking in whenever they are on a place. Informants will also be helpful because users are well knowledgeable of the world around them since discount and other freebies are posted by users who already visited them. It also displays a brief information about what is the place all about and again the information is entered by the user itself. Another feature of FourSquare is its maplike background enabling users to tag places on them which is similar to Google Maps but not exactly like it because the map FourSquare has is simpler and can be tagged locating the place in a specific area. Henceforth, a lot of users recently is addicted to the application for this purposes.
Application 2: Waze Waze is a free, communitybased traffic & navigation app, according to the Waze site. It is a powerful live driving generated service for drivers to outsmart nearby traffic, save time and improve everyone’s daily commute. The user can download the application in his/her mobile phone supporting Android, Iphone, Blackberry, and Nokia Ovi. They offer service on real time intelligence map with the assistance of GPS to track cars on the road and thus help drivers avoid nearby construction, traffic, police traps, weather hazards, notify cheap gas fueling, and other notifications necessary for driving. The application was created by Ehud Shabtai, a software engineer with a degree in Philosophy and Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, when he was given a PDA with an external GPS device preinstalled with navigation software. He discovered that the PDA which was given to him lack essential real time tracking device as to follow a car’s location so he devised a plan for accurately reflecting the road system, state of traffic and all the information relevant to drivers at any given moment. By 2006, the first stages of encoding started then after 2 years Ehud got together with the entrepreneurs Uri Levine and Amir Shinar, and together they founded Waze (formerly called Linqmap) which is funded by VC Entities including Blue Run Ventures; http://www.brv.com Magma Venture Partners http://www.magmavc.com; Vertex Venture Capital http://www.vertexvc.com 1
Its main feature is “Waze Groups”. Waze Groups allows drivers with similar destinations group together enabling them to communicate with each other and aid each other when there are likely obstacles on the road. It also promotes information about certain groups you want to track. For an instance, you have a group of friends on a different car, by using Waze, you can track the location of your other friends’ car and be on par with them. It does not only help drivers looking for escape routes in traffic, cab drivers could also track locations needing of service. The Waze app also supports web 2.0 since users could log in to their twitter or Facebook to use Waze. Given those, Waze is a handy tool for anyone looking for ease in the roads.
Application 3: LocalMind LocalMind is an application for Android, Iphone, and Blackberry users. It is used to get real time updates on the latest places you want to go. With the help of the community’s responses towards your questions, you are able to get information on what news, and what stories are currently going on the place. For an instance, you wanted to go on a beer house. All you need to do is type the name of the beerhouse, then type a question and wait for responses to people using the same application. It is easy and free. It is currently managed by Lenny Rachitsky, their CoFounder and CEO, Beau Haugh their CTO, Nelson Gauthier, and Nick Adams. Their headquarters is located at San Francisco and is currently hiring coworkers interested in app development. Their investors are granite ventures, inovia capital, real ventures, ian sobieski, Peter Bordes, Ty Danco, Zach Aarons, Ash Jhaveri. On the other hand, their advisers includes Ben Yoskovitz, Raymond Luk, Randy Smerik, and Perry Evans. For more information about the application, you can visit the official site in localmind.com. They also provide FAQs, and a blog, support center, and all other supporting services for users. The features as mentioned is wide in scope like responding to fellow users, or friends, and adding your favorite places in a list. It is easy to use because you can freely type what questions you want to be answered in a place. Also, there are recommendations written by users too who enjoyed your favorite places as well, as to keep up with new trends and real time updates anywhere in the planet. Chapter 2: Gamification in the Application How does each of the application implement gamification? Foursquare It is a free downloadable app that allows users to keep up with their friends by just checking where their friends are at the moment. The users will be able to monitor the latest activities of their friends through the application. Not only the users are able to track their friends, they can also share their experiences or the things they are doing at the moment. They can upload photos that could better describe the place they are in. The application calls the posting of places where they are at and posting photos is checkin. Other than posting and tracking friends, Foursquare also allows users to search for the best place depending on the mood of the user to which kind of stores they want to go in to. The application gives suggestions on the different genre of food, best shoe stores, and etc. The gamification element in the application is the earning of points whenever the user is the first person to checkin in a specific location among his or her friends in Foursquare. Checking in first in a specific place allows the user to earn points. Not only by checking in first will make the user earn points, but by also checking in to places that the user’s friends already have been to. Basically, the earning of points depends on the number of times the user has checked in. The points also depend on whether the place the user has checked in was already checked in by his or her friend in Foursquare. Point given to checked in places that the friends of the user has never went to is much higher compared to the places that was already checked in by the user’s friends. Nevertheless, points are always given every time the user checks in. The application also has a leader board where the ranking of the user with the most and least points among the user’s friends. The leader board is way for the users to be motivated to do whatever it takes just to earn points and be one of the top persons in the leader board. In Foursquare, it is not all about the users sharing where in the world they are at. There are also freebies that can be obtained through the stores that are being checked in. Some stores give discounts, parking lots, and basically any thing that the store could offer. There are also some stores that give freebies whenever the person who checked in was able to attract and persuade his or her friends to the particular store. Certainly there can be a lot of ways on how some stores could give freebies just to gain costumers. The application has its way of tallying the number of checkin of the user to a common type of place. An example would be 2
the tallying of the number of times the user went to a shoe store. When the user have reached a certain number of tally for checking in a common type of place, he or she will unlock an expertise badge that corresponds to the type of place she usually checks in to. For example, the user usually goes to a karaoke place. He or she will earn a karaoke star badge. Hence, the badge will be dependent on the type of place the user usually checks in to. To sum up the gamification of Foursquare, it is consist of earning of points whenever the user checks in, the existence of leader board that serves as a ranking of the most number of points to the least, freebies given to the users who checks in to a particular store, and the unlocking of expertise badge that is dependent on the most common store that a user checks in to. Waze Waze allows the users to get navigation to the different destinations they are planning to go. Routes to the best path going to a particular destination are what the application offers. Best path would mean a path that is free from traffic or a path that has fewer cars. All drivers nowadays would not want to sit and travel longer; they want to be at their destination the fastest way possible. Waze is the right application for drivers. The application also allows users to post pictures along with a description corresponding to a traffic route, a hazardous area, a location of a policeman, and etc. People can post basically any thing that has to do with the travelling on the road. The gamification aspect of Waze is earning of points through the posting of routes to the people who needs mapping and through the reporting of road conditions, traffic jams, and hazardous locations. Every time the user will be posting in the application, he or she will earn a certain number points. From the user’s points earned, it will make them obtain the different classifications. The Waze classifications are Waze Grownup, Waze Warrior, Waze Knight, and Waze Royalty. Waze Grownup is the rank for starters or the newbies who have reached a good number of points. The next rank is Waze Warrior. In this rank, it indicates that the users are already part of the top 10% in their region who are using the application. Waze Knight on the other hand, is the rank where the users are already part of the top 4% who have earned the most points in the region. The highest rank in Waze is the Waze Royalty. The Waze Royalty are the users that generates the top 1% of the Waze users in the region of the user. The ranking of the Waze users are also in the leader board part of the application where the people could see who are those people that are frequently travelling that could also be a reliable person to be asked about a route of a specific destination. Waze helps drivers to be more interactive and helpful with other drivers who are accessing the application. Localmind Localmind is an application that allows people to know the different stuff about a certain place; stuff like the crowding rate of the place, its ambiance, and etc. Basically the application is a way for users to get to know or know what are the happenings in a certain place without being there themselves. The users can locate a specific place around the globe and just ask a question regarding whatever the users have in mind about the place. The people in the place would see the questions and they can answer them. Localmind is a great application for the people who want to know about a place immediately and without needing to check the place themselves. The gamification in the Localmind application is the earning of karma points. The karma points are earned whenever the user checks in a particular venue, answer questions from different users, or just basically something to do with helping the Localmind users. The users will earn the karma points from different activities they have done and once it reaches a specific number of points on a specific venue, the application will recognize the user and makes him or her climb the levels of Localmind at that particular venue. The levels of the application will help the users who are asking questions to determine if the person who answered is reliable or not depending on his or her level. The levels of Localmind are Localmind Recruit, Localmind Expert, Localmind Champion, and Localmind Legend. Localmind Recruit is the first level in the hierarchy which requires 25 karma points to a specific venue in order to be at the level. Level 2 in the hierarchy is the Localmind Expert where 50 karma points are required to be attained before going up a level from the Localmind Recruit. The next level requires 100 karma points so that the user will gain the Localmind Expert description. The last level is the Localmind Champion where 200 karma points are needed for the users to be seen as a credible source of a specific venue. These levels motivate users to share their knowledge to the people who are asking questions in a particular place because of their desire to reach the top level. There are different ways on how to gain karma points. One way is answering a question that will give the user 10 karma points. Another way is inviting a friend to join the application that will give the user 2 karma points. Basically, helping the community of Localmind will guarantee the user karma points and from the accumulated number of points, the user will be able to climb through the levels of Localmind. What kind of engagement are they trying to promote using gamification? Foursquare 3
In Foursquare, the gamification element of it promotes tightening the relationship of friends. The application allows friends to keep up with each other by seeing where they are in at the moment. It enables friends to see each other if ever they have seen in the application that they are just few minutes away from each other. Not only do Foursquare help friends to keep up with each other, it also allows users in checking out new places based from what the user particularly wants. The application gives suggestions to the nearby stores or restaurants that will best fit what he or she is looking for. Having to try new stuff makes a person go out from his or her comfort zone and explore different things. By checking in to places would not only guarantee the user a points earning and know different places, it also allows users to get freebies from some stores or restaurants. Who would not want discounts whenever they are spending money. People will get attracted to every place where they can get freebies. Freebies from different places are just added on ingredient that makes the application more fun to use. Waze Waze promotes collaboration from different drivers who are on the road and using the application. It makes people help one another to find out road conditions, traffic jams, and hazardous locations. The application promotes cumulative effort from the users in order to see the best path for a specific destination. The earning of points and the rankings in the leader board encourages users to use the application in the competition of reporting to gain points. The application also allows people to be socially interactive in order to get the answers they want about road stuff and be able to drive efficiently. Waze is tool that helps users to benefit from each other and at the same time be as competitive as they can be to climb up in the top scorers in the leader board. Localmind Localmind makes people be engaged to an altruistic personality. People would answer questions not entirely because they want to help you, but it is because they want something in return. People who are so diligent to answer just want to earn points so that they would rank up in the levels of the application. Localmind also allows people to interact with one other through answering of the questions that are posted in a particular venue. Localmind gives convenience to users because they no longer need to go to a place just to check if the venue fits what they want at the moment; they just need to post a question and answers will be served. How do you access their implementation of gamification? Was it effective? Was it really able to engage user? (Why or why not) Foursquare In Foursquare, in order to access the gamification, the user should be able to check in to a lot of places and post stuff about the particular place in order for him or her to earn points and climb up on the leader board. The user should check in as many times as he or she could in order to gain a lot of points. The user will not only get a benefit of ranking up in the leader board from his or her check ins, but he or she can also gain benefits such as freebies from the places itself. Checking in to places will enable the users to get freebies; just as simple as that. The gamification element of Foursquare was effective and it was able to engage users because a lot of people are now using foursquare not only because of keeping up with their friends, but by also their desire to show everyone that they are best in the application. Nobody wants to be at the last place in the leader board. As much as possible, people would compete its way through the top rankings in order to have bragging rights. Waze Waze’s gamification is accessed through the reporting of road conditions, traffic jams, and hazardous locations. The earning of points is dependent on the number of posts the users have made already. The points earned by users are recorded and as they reach a certain number of points, they will rank up the levels in Waze. The different levels from lowest to highest respectively are Waze Grownup, Waze Warrior, Waze Knight, and Waze Royalty. The number of accumulated points allows the user to rank up these levels. Waze is very effective particularly to people who drive and want to know the different happenings in a specific location that he or she will be passing by. The application does not only help people know the best path but it also makes people be competitive in earning of points and at the same time collaborative through the reporting in the roads. The application does not make the user a parasite for only getting information about the routes from the people who post, it also makes people want to post more because of Waze’s ranking system. The application makes a twoway interaction for the posting and getting of information. Localmind The gamification aspect of Localmind is implemented through the answering of questions thrown at a specific venue by users that have knowledge about it. Users gain points from every question they have answered and the more points a user have, the higher his or her level will be. The levels in local mind from lowest to highest respectively are Localmind Recruit, Localmind Expert, Localmind Champion, and Localmind Legend. Each level has a corresponding number of points to be attained in order for the user to be in the particular level. Users would only be recognized in a particular level if he or she earned the required karma points at specific location. 4
Points are tallied every time the user answers a question to a specific venue that will allow him or her to reach the four levels. The higher the level a user is, the more reliable he or she is at the particular venue. Localmind’s gamification is effective and it is able to engage users because the users do not only want to answer the questions that are thrown by other users to earn points, but people who answer the questions also wants to be recognized. Users have an altruistic personality where they do not answer because they want to, they answer because they want something in return. By answering, users would gain points that enable them to climb up the highest level and be recognized as someone reliable.
Chapter 3: Our Achievements in Gamification Achievements In total the group earned at least 127 points for foursquare and 342 karma points on localmind for the gamified applications. All the users received the newbie badge and the adventurer badge. The newbie badge is awarded to the user when they first checkin. Points are awarded whenever a user checksin a new venue and gives comments/recommendations. Points are also awarded when the recommendations given by the user is liked by another user or when the recommendation was able to help other users or the venue itself. The more the users are able to contribute and the more they are active in using the application, the more points they will gain and they’ll gain points faster. In this short time, the users of this group weren’t able to use the application as much as they wanted to. They could have made more achievements and made more contributions to the community if they were given more time. To be able to achieve more in gamified applications the use has to have a lot of time to be able to be active in whatever activity the application is concerned with. The group aimed for at least the Explorer badge in foursquare to mark that they were active in using the application. To achieve this much, the users of the gamified applications regularly checkedin whenever they ate a meal and whenever they had access to the internet. Being really active helps in gaining points for the application. Whenever a user checksin, they can add some recommendations and comments with some photos so that future checkins in that place will have a better experience. The users are also motivated to explore the application itself and places where the application can be used by giving them badges so that they’ll know that they have helped the community with their checkin and recommendations. The highest activity badge the group was able to achieve in the limited amount of time is the adventurer badge. This badge is awarded to the user when they checkin in ten different places. They are also awarded when they answer a question that another user has asked correctly. Recommending the application The group would recommend using the gamified applications. The application easily pinpoints the general location of the user checkingin. This helps a lot of users since they can gather and generate better tips and recommendations. Other users can follow your recommendations and give further recommendations. Whenever a user checksin, they are able to give tips and recommendations for the venue they are in. They are also able to upload photos of the venue so that other users will be able get a better feel of what the venue really is like. The application actually lets future explorers consider next venues. The group recommends the gamification applications because they are rewarded by just being active in the things they usually already do. In addition to that, by just being active in whatever they already like to do they contribute to the community at the same time. They’re able recommend and show the community what the venue is like so that they’ll be possibly attracted to the venues added in the application. Contributions to the Community The best contribution one of the users has made is that she uploaded most, if not all, of the photos of the meals she took. By doing so; she was able to really recommend venues that served at least the good looking food. She was also able to comment about the venue, how great the ambiance is, how friendly staff can be, the kind of customers they usually serve and how tasty the food is. The comments also contributed a lot for the community because they will be able to see what a person who actually had the experience of going to that venue thought of it. 5
The gamification application also lets the user answer people’s questions about certain venues. Pints go up when a user helps another user. So when we helped that user we actually promoted that user to do same. The last contribution the users have given to the community is that they are actually indirectly advertising the venue. If the users are satisfied they would give praise to the venue and other users would be curious why that venue was given praise. They’d go to the venue and try the recommendations out for themselves thus helping the venue earn. The contributions our users gave was not as well received as we'd wanted it to be. The venues we went to were the usual places that ordinary users already went to. There were already a lot of recommendations and comments given in the venues already. Though, one of our users helped another user by answering a few questions correctly. The user helped most likely appreciated the answer given to him/her. We were rewarded with points by helping users answer questions correctly.
Chapter 4: Gamification in the Philippines 1) What are other areas of the Philippine Society (except for Higher Education) best attract engagement using gamification? Gamification is done by applying game mechanics into nongame applications in order to enhance a certain behavior that is desired by the designer. It uses BF Skinner’s Theory of Reinforcement because once a desired action of the designer is done by the user, he will be rewarded and in return, he will be motivated to repeat what he did again and again until it becomes a behavior. Gamification can actually be applied in every area in the Philippine society in order to enhance or to abstain from certain behavior; but in order for the implementation to be possible, there should first be a good idea that will produce attractive game mechanics that will draw the users to use it. In a country like the Philippines wherein problems are rampant, Gamification can be seen as a solution to a problem whether to increase or decrease the citizen’s behavior depending on the situation. Areas in the Philippine Society that can be gamified are: A. Business/Work The area that had already been actively participating in gamification is the business area of the society due to the desire of companies to engage their customers to behave in a certain way which leads them to patronize their products or to help them gain income through a certain behavior. Gamification in business may be used internally, for their employees to be more efficient and effective or it may be used externally, for their target customers to behave in a certain behavior that will benefit the company. Some of the examples of external gamification that are already used are: SM’s case: Every time a customer buys products in SM, they would accumulate points that they would be able to use to buy more products in the establishment. SM took the advantage of people’s desire to achieve rewards in the idea of accumulating points for them to achieve a reward; in the process of accumulating points, they engage the users to buy from them. The same concept is also observed in Petron’s reward system; the more you refuel in their gas station, the more points you will get; and those points are equal to certain rewards. And through the accumulation of points, Petron would be able to increase their sales therefore earning more money. On the other hand, there are also internal gamification idea found in companies. One of the proposed internal gamification’s aim was to solve the high turnover rate in call center agencies. Call center agents often experience high stress levels due to talking to angered customers, unbalanced lifestyle, and low autonomy in work so they tend to quit their jobs despite of the high compensation given to them. And the gamified solution was to give more incentives to those agents who are able to lower the stress level of the customer by comparing the customer’s stress level before talking to the agent and after talking to them. In that way, agents will offer better customer service and will be motivated to accept more calls from angered customers. Gamification in business may be implemented depending what effects the company desires to achieve. Because of the emergence of 6
the information technology, gamification has been a new strategy in successful business operations.
B. Religion How gamification is applied in the religion area of the society varies with the religion. As for a Catholic country like the Philippines, the Church would aim for more believers in their religion in line with the order “Spread the Good News Jesus Christ”. Gamification can be done by every time a person is able to bring in a new member to the Catholic family, they would earn stamps, and if they have accumulated a certain amount of stamps, this would give them free Church services like baptismal ceremonies, confirmation ceremonies, matrimonial ceremonies and the like that would normally require fees for them to be able to fulfill these ceremonies. This will fulfill the Church aim of more believers, in return those people would also be encouraged to invite more because of the rewards that they will receive after.
C. Health The people that may be concerned in this area of the society are the people themselves and the different hospitals. As humans, we are concerned of our health and as hospitals, they are oriented not only to watch over people’s health but they are also concerned to earn income through the service that they give. Hospitals can apply the concept of gamification by taking advantage of people’s consciousness of their health; they can make promotions like after accomplishing certain number of physical examinations, they would be credited to discounts in medicine or free checkups and the likes. In this way, the people would check their bodies more often and that equates to more income earned by the hospitals and after a certain number of times, the people would be given rewards.
D. Environment One of the major problems of our country is waste management. The disposal of wastes has been a problem ever since and this has caused other related problems such as flooding in areas, spreading of epidemics and the likes. Gamification can be used to increase the participation of the citizens of our country in waste management through avoiding the use of nonbiodegradable materials and encouraging them to recycle waste so that we would be able to lessen the harm that is done to the environment but maintaining the same amount of consumerism. E. Arts, Culture and Media As we all know, Filipinos tend to patronize Internationally made entertainment than locally made entertainment may it be in movies, music etc. This is alarming because the culture of our country would slowly be influenced by those foreign films and as an effect, our culture will slowly be degraded. As a solution, the music and film industry of our country may apply gamification in order to engage Filipinos in patronizing locally produced films/music. This may not only strengthen our cultural identity but this will also bring more income to our country.
F. Social Justice and Order As we all know, the people that are concerned for social justice and order are public officials like people in the Department of Justice and the Philippine National Police. Although the Philippine National Police has already a gamified system that is implemented that is already present long time ago, through the giving of merits and promotion of ranks after accomplishing a tasks. This has not been enough and in addition to that, it needs to be improved because our society is still full of injustices. Another factor that they may add in their present system is by giving rewards by how efficient or how fast they are able to accomplish their goals by using the least amount of resources. And aside from promoting officials to a higher position, they may also give recognition to those who were able to do their job well by announcing it to the public. By adding this extra factor for evaluating, our country’s resources would not be wasted and order in the society would be ensured.
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G. Government The Philippines ranked 44th among the most corrupt countries in the world according to a survey conducted by Transparency International, a global organization that works against corruption. Due to that fact that the Philippines already has an Office of the Ombudsman that accepts complaints and controls corruption but is still unable to improve the status of the Philippines, they can apply gamification in order to help them lessen corruption among the officials in the government. Although the government already applied little gamification when officials share percentages of what they were able to save for the country, it is still not enough because it will not work if they are given bribes that are greater than the percentage that they will get from saving money for the country. Due to the complexity and large area (e.g. Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Land Transportation Office etc.) that the Philippine government may cover, the mechanics of the gamification should be well thought of so that it will at the same time attract government officials to use it to lessen corruption.
H. Family Families have been applying gamification in their daily activities without them noticing. Children are given rewards every time they will have academic achievements. And in order for them to earn academic achievements, they have to accumulate high scores in quizzes, periodical tests in school. In this way, parents’ wish that their children will have good grades would be accomplished. Other than that, other examples include if a child goes home before the curfew, he would be allowed to go out with his friends more. In this way, parents’ wish that their child will go home on time will be achieved and the child’s desired reward to go out more will also be accomplished. Every family has their own expectations to its members so they can apply different gamified strategy to achieve their desired outcomes.
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Selecting one are in Philippine Society to gamify, how will be the gamification be like?
One of the area in the society that can be successfully gamified is the ENVIRONMENT. As we all know, waste management is one of the major problems of the Philippines. Because of this problem, dump sites are not enough in the country and in addition to that, there are many diseases that already have occurred because of the unsanitary environment. In Taiwan, they have found a solution to this problem. The solution was different establishments in the country stopped the offer of plastic bags to their clients even if the clients are willing to pay for one. Everyone in the country would bring their own bags/ containers or they will have to carry the things that they bought only with their hands. Applying this idea into the Philippines can be a solution to lessen the waste that is generated in the country but the idea will definitely not attract clients’ support. In order to make the implementation of less waste to be interesting, gamification can be applied. The aim of the proposed gamified project: > Lessening the use of plastics in establishments by offering points to those who will bring their own bags. >The establishments who are involved will also gain benefit of this project by the increased number of clients due to their participation of giving points to those clients who bring their own bags. >Establishments will not only save because of the decreasing plastic bags that they purchase but they will also receive tax rebates from the government. >Instead of the government spending funds for them to find dump sites or for them to spend money in figuring out how to solve the tons of wastes that are created by the people, they can give tax incentives to those establishments that participate in this project. >Further lessen the use of plastics by deducting points from those who will dispose avoidable use of plastics. 8
How to start the project: 1) Seek for the government’s participation in this Ecofriendly movement. 2) Gather establishments that are willing to participate in the movement. 3) Create a card that will be recognized by the establishments, this is where the people will store their points. 4) Agree with the incentives that will be given in a certain accumulated amount of points. Proposed Point System:
For the project to further achieve its aim, every time a you throw a kind of plastic, there will be a corresponding deduction that will be made depending on what type of plastic that you threw away. Code 1 are those plastics that are easy to recycle and its unavoidable therefore there will only be a little amount of deduction. Followed by code 2 and 3 share the same quality as Code1 therefore there will only be a few points to be deducted. Codes 4, 5 and 6 on the other hand, are plastics that are hard to recycle and its use can be avoided therefore if you threw those kinds of plastics, you will be deducted a large amount of points. The client can catch up in their points through bringing their own bags to stores so that they will be rewarded 1000 points. There is a challenge in this gamified project so that the clients will not be bored throughout the implementation. The are 4 levels to be reached are enumerated below. Every time a level is reached, a new badge will be stuck in their cards to symbolize a higher staus. Stickers to be given when a certain level is reached:
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3) What do you think are the different factors that will make gamification of applications successful or not successful in the Philippines? Factors that will contribute to the successful implementation of gamification in the Philippines are: 1) According to Nielsen Global Online. Filipinos ranked number one in terms of playing video games among the 52 other countries that were surveyed.The engagement of Filipinos in video games will contribute to the successful implementation of gamification because Filipinos are predicted to be more or less interested to participate in videogame gamified application. 2) There is a sudden rise of the use of wireless devices in the Philippines, in addition to that, there is also a sudden increase in the number of wifi hotspots found in the Philippines therefore this will encourage the Filipinos to take advantage of those technologies that will further add to one of the factors that will contribute to the successful implementation of gamification in the Philippines in the part of information technology. . Factors that will NOT contribute to the successful implementation of gamification in the Philippines are: 1) There has been a 80/20 rule that people has to experience 80% reward and 20% challenge so that they would be attracted to conquer the game; but gamified business applications often do not have enough challenges so the tendency is that people might not be attracted to participate in the game.
4)
What are possible societal, personal or business issues surrounding gamification in the Philippines?
Societal Issues surrounding gamification in the Philippines: 1) Due to the high poverty rate in the Philippines, gamification that requires people to spend money in order to earn points will not cater to every individual in the society. 2) People will not act in the same way as the how the implementor of the application has desired because people have different motivations and this will affect their engagement in the application. Personal Issues surrounding gamification in the Philippines: 1) If there is always a person who is dominating the highest position in the leaderboard, those people who wants to catch up might be tired in the long run if they are not able to improve their own condition to the top of the leaderboard. 2) A person has to have the three factors namely ability, motivation and trigger so that gamification may be attractive to users. Ability refers to the capacity of a person to perform a certain task; motivation refers to the intrinsic factor that will trigger a person to perform a certain task; triggers refer to the actual performance of the task. Without one of these innate factors in a person, the implementation of gamification would not be successful. Business Issues surrounding gamification in the Philippines: 1) Successful gamification in a business will usually last for a short period of time because of tough competition. Competitors may implement the same gamified strategy as your business so clients may not faithfully patronize your products despite of the incentives 11
that will be given. 2) People who part of generation Y, those who were born between 19771994) are found to be less loyal to the products that they are buying due to the information overload that they may experience because of the exposure to different kinds of media therefore the integration of gamification in business is certainly a strategy to maintain their clients.
Chapter 5: Gamification and Increasing Student Collaboration in Higher Education The school motivates students to achieve more by gamifiying academic areas through titles and incentives for the leaderboard. There are also other areas besides academics wherein gamification can be applied in order for students to strictly follow rules and to appreciate activities more. The following places or areas could be improved more which includes: ● ● ● ● ●
Canteens in La Salle Bookstore Library College Activities Parking Area within the School
Canteens in La Salle Students usually go out and find restaurants surrounding La Salle although there are already canteens in the premise. In order for students to save more, the school could hand out food cards crediting all of the purchases done in all of the school’s canteens. It is not forced to people who do not want to eat in school canteens; however it will benefit students who want to afford discounts on the food they eat. Canteens like Zaide near SJ walk, Animo Food House, La Casita in Enrique Razon, and the 7th floor canteen of Andrew apply the same rules of purchasing and getting points. An application like a card system could be implemented in the school with the use of mobile phones as their “card” and leader board posted on the internet as their hall of fame. The point system based on a single receipt is illustrated below
Aside from the food price there is also an alternative way to earn points which is buying food according to ecofriendliness. Plastic wrappers, plastics, and other non recyclable material will not gain any additional points upon purchase. Food which does not have non recyclable materials will acquire additional 5 points. The following are included in the list of food:
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Since there is a score system, there will also be a reward, and leaderboard system. The rewards and levels of a student will depend on how many points he/she acquired upon buying various foods in La Salle’s canteens. In the stage levels of a student’s record, the more level she has the harder it is to move on to the next level. On the other hand, it is the contrary in the rewards system. The bigger the reward the bigger the level and points a student has. The level table only has 15 levels overall and has 3 cohorts for every 5 levels attained. Once the student has reached the maximum level, he/she can advance to “Voracious” mode wherein the levels are repeated; however, it is more advanced and has a different color than before. Plus, the final level is the acquisition of a title “Certified La Salle Connoisseur”.
There are also rewards depending on the points and levels a student has. The most common rewards are discounts on other restaurants outside La Salle. A discount also could be given on favorite food a student usually orders in the canteens he/she goes. Another freebie is a canteen tumbler, merchandise and other material giveaways. For the benefits, there will be a priority list in case a 13
line is on queue depending on the level and points of a student. A list of recommended food will also be given according to the likes and dislikes of a student. A student can request a food preference or customize the food they want depending on the level. Cohort 1 can access the benefits of freebies upon acquiring the level Inexperienced Nibbler and above. Cohort 2 has privileges to access the discounts and merchandise freebies. Lastly, Cohort 3 has privileges on all benefits including the priority lane, and food customization or request. The screenshots below corresponds to the badges.
Chickenlike
BabyLike
Human
Beast
MonsterLike
Last Badge
There will also be a special area wherein student could share their experiences on the food and post pictures of their favorite food at canteens. A kind of forum like interaction among the users of the application is contained within it. By following this pattern, users could track what food is a must eat in canteens and what food are not worth the buy. It is like an application for assessing food only within the canteens of La Salle for the purpose of improving the quality of food in La Salle at the same time satisfying the students on what they eat whenever they feel like eating inside the school. Bookstore Similar to the proposed system in canteen, the bookstore also should implement the use of cards. The card system is capable of earning points depending on the student’s credit balance on his/her card. Although the student could only avail the card if he/she is on level 3, the student should begin first at paper slip, then hard paper slips, then lastly, the card. A student can earn points by buying merchandise in the bookstore as well as books needed in a course. Depending on the amount of purchase the student buys, it could accrue points and eventually can be claimed for other books and merchandise available in the bookstore.The application can record the number of books or supplies a student purchase and notifying other students also. It will be helpful in predicting if the book is already out of stock or it still has a lot of stock. The table below shows how many points each item on the bookstore corresponds. Items Books Sheets Pens Notebook Bags Merchandise Other stuff
Points 10 pts 2 pts 1 pt 5 pts 2 pts 10 pts 1 pt
Additional points could be acquired upon buying books relevant to the course a student is in. For example, a student bought a book for her course even it is only a compulsory need. The credit will add an additional +5 points for every purchase following the guidelines above. For the levelling system, there are only three levels a student could get. The first level is the librarian. Level 1, Buyer, requires 10 points to accomplish. The second level is the Collector. This level corresponds to 50 points before a student could acquire the title. The last level is “Shopper”. This last stage has a total of 100 points to successfully accomplish. Once a student has reached a level, he/she can claim free merchandise on the bookstore. Freebies according to Level Attainment Level 1: Yellow Pad, Ball Pens, Liquid Erasers, Columnar Pads, Notepads (small), pencils, free test booklets, etc. Level 2: Paper bags, notebooks, pencil holders, others. Level 3: Planner, shirts, book (1), or small tote bags. Changes according to Level: 14
Level 1: Paper Slip Level 2: Hard Paper Slip Level 3: Card The application features are quite the same as the previous proposal which also has a feedback system, a wall system like facebook, and a forumlike comment system. By doing so, users could help each other be updated with the stocks and other supplies inside the bookstore.
Library The library system is quite different from the preceding two proposed ideas. Instead of using library cards, a student could use their IDs in verifying the number of books he/she have borrowed. Since the ID is the primary object in order for a student to borrow a book, the id should have a built in application wherein it saves all of the books a student borrowed on her stay therefore containing points for levelling purposes. In gamifiying certain areas in the school, there should always have a kind of hierarchy for people to be devoted in levelling an activity. It drives students to achieve higher because there are also others grabbing the throne for supremacy. So the system saves all the data whenever the ID is scanned upon borrowing a book. It is added to the list of books previously borrowed. A book is equivalent to an additional 2 points in the overall point database. Other points are also accumulated when he/she renews a book, search for thesis books. Corresponding Points (per book) Borrow Book 2 pts Renew Book 1 pt Search Thesis Book 1 pt The levelling system, on the other hand, has a total of 5 levels. It also has a corresponding badge for students who keeps on borrowing books. Depending on the students points in his/her ID, he/she can obtain special privileges unlike other students who does not subscribe in the proposed system. The special privileges and level names are listed below. Level Name Level 1: Spectator Level 2: Avid Reader Level 3: Librarian Level 4: Book Graduate Level 5: Book Worm
Points 10 pts 50 pts 100 pts 200 pts 300 pts
Special Privileges Extended Deadline of Books Extension of the maximum limit of borrowing a book Unlimited Reservation of books Allowed to borrow Reference books Allowed to borrow exclusive books
The application is also capable of recording all of the borrowed books and posting it into the social network. Given that, fellow users connected to the application could see the progress and other updates you make. It also encourages other people on borrowing the book next time, if ever the student reported positive feedbacks on the book. Feedbacks and comments are also available for users to impart with other users.
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5 15
College Activities It is inevitable that students slack off when attending seminars, activities held by the college. We formulated an application wherein a user could list all of what school activities he/she is attending. Also, users could comment on how and what is going on in the event to inform other users as well. Admins of the school using the application could create an event and invite the students, students on the other hand, receive a notification if he/she will attend the meeting or event. It is a feature in facebook which is used as of today, however, it lacks the real time essence, thus we think that it should be available in mobile phones. Offering the application compatible on mobile phones makes real time updating possible. When the user arrives at the event, he/she can comment on the thread of event and suggest or notify others to come as well. The point system will depend on how many events and how many people have you invited altogether attended the event. The list below shows how many points per request and what are the corresponding levels a student could attain. Activity Commented on an event Invited someone Accepted an invitation Attended an event Made someone attend an event Gave Feedback on event Answered a question Posted a question Volunteered to help organize 10 pts the event
Points 1 pt 2 pts 1 pt 5 pts 5 pts 2 pts 2 pts 1 pt
Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Points 0 pts 1 pt 10 pts 30 pts 50 pts 100 pts 150 pts 200 pts 250 pts
9 10
300 pts 400 pts
The school should implement gamifying applications such as this in order for students to be motivated in attending an event. Of course, along with the points are the rewards equivalent to the collected points a student has. The students could opt to exchange their points into incentive points from certain professors who agrees to use the application. It makes adding incentives to the students easier because it is already digitally recorded. A professor's work only has to copy paste the names of those who attended in the particular event listed. Sometimes students does not want incentives but rather tangible objects for promos. The school could hand out bags, freebies and all sort of merchandise related to the event. For a more thrifty approach, a promo for exchanging the late and absences for a certain points may be accomplished as long as the professor in charge agrees with it. Below is a list of points for redeeming prices. Points
Incentives Freebies
20 pts
+1 pt keychain
30 pts 50 pts 80 pts 100 pts 150 pts 200 pts
+1 pt +1.5 pt +1.5 pt +2 pts +2.5 pts +3 pts
id strap small notepad CD(with app/blank) tote bag/notepad tshirts tshirts and bag
The incentives and freebies could be freely altered by the professor or the one who manages it according to his/her preference although the one showed above is the standard numbers for certain points. On to the description of the application. It has a simple 16
interface similar to foursquare and is also available in mobile phone devices. The user could comment on events posted on his/her colleagues wall or just his/her wall. The like feature is also present letting people know how many liked the event or how many was neutral about it. Feedbacks are freely given to the user. however, it is compulsory when answering a feedback. But of course, when replying to the feedback request a number of points is given to the students if he/she answers it. It also supports a QandA setup for students wanting answers on the event. The typical questions always pops into our head when an event is said to us, and when the event is already taking place. If he/she is already late or if there are people in the event already. All this questions can be addressed on the site and users who are attending can answer those question. Then again, a point is always given when helping others solve their questions.
Parking Area Student drivers have no idea whether the parking lot in La Salle is already full or has vacant parking slots. We formulated an application wherein drivers can click the “parked” button on it signifying the place is already occupied. It has also a simple map of areas available for parking which is labeled by numbers according to floor and position. The driver is obliged to select the parked sign and unparked if ever he/she parks and leaves the designated area. When parking in an area, a point is given to the user, eventually, the point will turn out to rewards like free parking and reservation. Nonetheless, it will be handy to fellow student drivers in a timeefficient way of knowing how many available slots are still available. Expanding more, below is a list of activities and their equivalent points. Together with the list is another list regarding the rewards and its required points. Activities “Parked” on a lot “Unparked” on a lot
Points 2 pts 2 pts
Rewards Free Parking Free Reservation
Points 30 pts 80 pts
As you can see, it is a simple application only for identifying how many slots are available in the parking area. The application already has a minimap for identifying vacant slots, in other words, “unparked” slots and shows the user what position is it located. Compared to the proposed applications above, this does not have a levelling function because the user only has to earn points then redeeming points if the desired point is already attained. There will be no hierarchy in the application but it would concentrate more on claiming of freebies and rewards. The goal is also focused on offering users/drivers an accurate description of the parking lot’s condition whether it is parkable or not. Screenshots of proposed apps: From left to right. canteenapp, bookstoreapp, school activityapp, libraryapp
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