FITQUEST

An app that helps students get healthy and stay that way

 

 A Proposal by William D. Gallagher and Jessica Bennett

CP1405: Games for Business and GamificationSemester 1, 2015

ContentsSummary..................................................................................................................................................2

Objectives................................................................................................................................................4

Users and Their Behaviours.....................................................................................................................5

Design......................................................................................................................................................7

Conclusion...............................................................................................................................................9

Bibliography..........................................................................................................................................10

1

Summary According to the JCU Learning, Teaching and Assessment Policy, a full time student at JCU is expected to undertake 40 hours of study per week. This includes time set aside for personal study outside of timetabled hours. Students often must also manage and set aside time for other necessary tasks such as work. Generally, part time students also juggle responsibilities besides study. As a result of the obligations of many students, both during and outside of expected study hours, many students cannot find time to focus on their health and mental wellbeing or do not feel the urge to prioritise these aspects of their life.Unfortunately, however, study and, particularly, study combined with longer working hours outside of university can and often does have an adverse effect on the mental and physical health of students (Roberts et al., 2000). With 42% of Australians between the ages of 20 – 24 being engaged in formal study (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014), increasing enrolment rates (Department of Education and Training, 2015) and rising cost of living across all household types (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014) it will become more important to encourage students to care for their mental and physical health.

The concept of the “freshman fifteen” describes the expectation that new university students will gain fifteen pounds as a result of a lack of proper dietary adaptation to their new environment, and it is not uncommon to come across students that believe this. However, one study on this phenomenon concluded that, in reality, students only gain an average of 2.7 pounds in their freshman year (Mihalopoulos et al, 2008). Startlingly, though, this figure is still 5.5 times greater than the weight gain experienced by the general population within the same timeframe (Mihalopoulos et al, 2008).

Another study at a Midwestern university surveyed students aged 19 to 25 years old on their eating habits and found that over 90% of those students consume fast food six to eight times a week (Driskell et al, 2005).

It is no secret that a lack of moderation in eating fast foods affects health adversely. The amount of kilojoules contained in a single traditional fast food meal averages out to nearly 50% of most humans’ daily energy requirement (Brindal, 2010), and because of this it is easy to see why the eating habits of many students cause them to gain some amount of weight. These same fast food meals contain “enough saturated fat to account for close to two thirds of the daily guideline amount” (Brindal, 2010). Saturated fat is “one of the main causes of high blood cholesterol levels” (Dieticians Association of Australia, 2015), and can cause “fatty deposits to build up in your arteries” (Dieticians Association of Australia, 2015), which can cause a heart attack or stroke (Dieticians Association of Australia, 2015).

Health is an area in which it is not only important to motivate individuals but to also foster long term engagement to achieve lasting results (Arnab, 2013). There is already evidence of an increase of digital technology and games across the health care field being used to target the behaviours and habits associated with chronic conditions (Arnab, 2013). Games also provide a unique opportunity to record and assess large scale health data (Arnab, 2013). Finally there are several previous health gamifications which have had huge success, from fitness apps to official government programs (Arnab, 2013).

For this reason, we feel that the gamification of the process of forming positive health and lifestyle habits is important. The app will provide students that have difficulty finding the

2

time and motivation to improve their health and fitness with a fun, challenging and rewarding system that encourages them to do so, and records and informs them of their progress tangibly. It will utilise a tiered achievement and challenge system that will allow students to achieve positive and sustainable health outcomes in achievable, measurable steps.

3

ObjectivesThere are two main behaviours which the app will target and aim to improve, the first being unhealthy eating habits, and the second fitness habits that mean the user is too sedentary. The app will use intrinsic motivation to encourage regular exercise and small sustainable diet changes. Users will complete activities which will award points as well as having the chance to provide users with additional rewards designed to provide customization and individuality for users (Items for their avatar, profile themes, app themes), this system is also expandable meaning that new rewards could be gradually released to maintain engagement in existing users.

The app will have two categories of activity, challenges and achievements. Challenges will be smaller activities that can be repeated multiple times but will award less points and less impressive customizations.

4

Users and Their BehavioursThe app targets JCU Townsville students, and this is our user base. Around 11,500 students, both domestic and international, study at this campus, and this means that our users come from a diverse range of backgrounds. However, they are all living a lifestyle that incorporates study, and this factor is one that commonly causes an inability or lack of motivation to place importance on their own health and wellbeing.

The app specifically targets the students that struggle with this, and aims to assist them in solving this issue through providing them with a simple, accessible way to challenge themselves and track their progress. The app is interesting and enjoyable enough to keep users that usually have a hard time motivating themselves interested, and, over time, will allow them to form permanent, positive habits.

Our users are both male and female, so the app aims to appeal to both genders. Statistics show that males make up the majority of “traditional gamers” at 60%, but women make up the majority of “mobile social gamers” at 53%. The app is designed to be accessed by its users on a mobile device, which makes it appealing to women that already participate in mobile gaming. However, the app incorporates staples of many traditional games, such as a loot system, and this should pique the interest of the male gaming demographic.

Some examples of personas included in our target demographic are as follows:

Jake is a 19 year old single man studying engineering full time in his second year. He spends so much time studying, both on and off campus, that he cannot find the time to place importance on much else. His diet consists mainly of the foods that are most convenient for him to acquire, regardless of their nutritional content. Jake knows that he should probably put more thought into what he eats, but he doesn’t know much about nutrition and doesn’t really know where to start.

Lydia is a 35 year old married mother of two children aged 12 and 15. Her husband works long hours as a truck driver, and is often away from home for weeks at a time. At the beginning of this year, Lydia decided to return to university as a part time economics student in order to improve her chances of employment in a more desirable role. She also works a part time job at a bank between juggling her responsibilities as a parent – sometimes as the only parent present in the household. Lydia’s own health does not even register on her list of priorities, as she must put her children, her studies and her job first in order to maintain balance. She does understand that her health is important, and thinks she would take steps to improve it if she thought there were an easy, accessible way to do so.

Julia is a 21 year old woman who travelled from Brazil to study abroad at JCU this year. She wishes to become proficient in the English language, so is taking multiple writing and communication subjects in order to build upon the basic skill she already has. Julia regularly eats takeout food and sugary snacks as she does not want to cook in the meagre facilities provided by her accommodation. She has noticed that she has been steadily gaining weight as a result of this, and is unhappy about it. She wants to improve her diet and fitness habits to counteract this, but she’s not entirely sure where to start and feels daunted by the prospect of starting a diet and fitness routine with no guidance.

5

Each of these personas could benefit greatly from being provided with a structured but accessible method of improving their personal fitness and dietary health, and this is exactly what the app aims to do.

6

DesignTo encourage both behavioural change and long term user engagement, it is important that difficulty is tailored to individual users (Zheng, 2014). For example, a user who plays sport three times a week is going to find an achievement for completing three push-ups trivial and unrewarding. However a user who is fairly unfit may find that same challenge too hard to complete or frustratingly difficult. Appropriate difficulty will be determined through a questionnaire taken when the user creates their profile to establish a physical and nutritional level for the user. This should help ensure that suggested activities for users are achievable and sustainable for each individual.

The app itself presents users with a series of challenges that encourage positive diet and fitness habits, with each subsequent challenge steadily increasing in difficulty. Challenges are smaller activities that generally take an hour or less to complete. Users are rewarded with points and coins (lesser badges) for completing challenges, as well as a small chance of receiving loot. Loot is in the form of wearable assets that can be used to customise the user’s individual avatar, as well as assets that can be used to customise the user’s personal experience in the app. Achievements are multi-stage challenges that provide better rewards. These rewards include points, as well as badges (symbols that visually represent the completion of achievements) that are displayed on the user’s profile and a greater volume of impressive loot.

Over time, users can earn and collect superior loot, coins and badges, and will eventually have a profile that visually represents their hard work through displaying these and their accumulated points. These profiles can be made public and shared with others. Users can also add each other to their personal ‘friends list’ for easy viewing of the progress of their profiles. This creates a spirit of competition between users that will act as a further motivator to work to complete challenges.

When competition is introduced as a factor in gamification, there is a possibility of it de-motivating users. However, this should not be an issue, as individual users will not see their progress ranked explicitly against the progress of others unless they choose to do so. Users can view their progress level compared to that of their friends on a leaderboard, but this leaderboard is kept entirely separate from the rest of the app in another tab. Therefore, users that wish to compete with their friends can see exactly where they rank, but users that do not desire to do so will not see where they stand progress-wise unless they specifically choose to. This should prevent users that are not comfortable with seeing their rank from feeling inadequate or discouraged.

When designing the app, we considered the elements of mastery, autonomy, relatedness and purpose, and aimed to incorporate all of them to keep users interested and engaged.

Mastery can be achieved by users through the completion of challenges; the aim of the app is that once users have completed many challenges and achievements, they should have formed positive fitness and nutritional habits that will stay with them.

Autonomy in the app is achieved through providing users with the chance to receive rare content for completing achievements, and also through providing each user with a personal avatar that is completely customisable and unique to them.

7

Relatedness in the app is promoted via social aspects, such as adding friends, viewing their profiles and determining where you stand in relation to their progress.

The purpose of the app is simple, and very obvious – to help users form and maintain positive lifestyle habits. That users understand and value the purpose of this app is extremely important as it is their responsibility to ensure that they are completing challenges and achievements properly.

This system of tangible progress through earning rewards and, if the user chooses to engage in the social side of the app, competition is the core of the gamification in the app. This is what will keep users motivated to return to the app and continue to complete challenges.

The app will be available to students on mobile platforms, such as smartphones and tablets. This is because it is very convenient for users to be able to check on their profile and complete challenges and achievements at any time. Further, it is easy to push notifications to users from the app on mobile devices, such as those that encourage users that are inactive on the app for a period of time to continue.

8

ConclusionThe metrics used to measure the success of the gamification will be:

Number of users vs number of active users – if this drops over time, it can be concluded that the app does not adequately motivate users to continuously use it

Number of points per user – points are an indication of users’ dedication to completing challenges and achievements. If a large number of users do not gain an adequate amount of points over time, it can be concluded that the challenges and achievements are too hard or not interesting enough, and/or that the app does not sufficiently motivate users to complete them

It is important to keep track of and evaluate these objectives as the main objective of the app is to motivate users to form positive habits over time. If users are giving up on the app quickly or not engaging well with it, the app will not fulfil its intended purpose.

9

Bibliography Arnab, D. (2013). Can gamification transform lives?. 1st ed. pharmaphorum. Brotherhood of St Lawrence (2014). Australian Youth Unemployment 2014:

Snapshot. 1st ed. Brunswick. Brindal, E. (2010). Exploring fast food consumption behaviours and social influence.

1st ed. NOBLE Research Group. Dieticians Association of Australia (2015). Saturated Fats | Dietitians Association of

Australia. Available from: <http://daa.asn.au/for-the-public/smart-eating-for-you/nutrition-a-z/saturated-fats/>

Driskell, J., Kim, Y. and Goebel, K. (2005). Few Differences Found in the Typical Eating and Physical Activity Habits of Lower-Level and Upper-Level University Students. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 105(5).

Mihalopoulos, N., Auinger, P. and Klein, J. (2010). The Freshman 15: Is it Real?. Journal of American College Health, 56(5). Available from: <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/JACH.56.5.531-534?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3dpubmed>.

Roberts, R., Golding, J., Towell, T., Reid, S., Woodford, S., Vetere, A. and Weinreb, I. (2000). Mental and physical health in students: The role of economic circumstances. British Journal of Health Psychology, 5(3).

Zheng, R. (2014). You Have Leveled Up! Gamify Your Life. pharmaphorum.

10