Prototype – Jizo

In order to design the gamified digital app Jizo, the participants’ inputs and some guidelines suggested in the literature were taken into consideration. When surveyed about the gamification elements that were important for an app to have, the participants have proposed the following elements for including in the Jizo app, based on the DMC elements (2.2. Game Design Techniques and Elements):

i. Social Relationships: The social relationships were covered by adding friends, invite them to a ride, comment and like their rides;

ii. Progression: The end-user can monitor their rides when using the Jizo app;

iii. Challenges: A set of goals are suggested for the end-user to achieve;

iv. Competition: Rankings/Leaderboards encourage the end-users to be better than other users;

v. Feedback: The app provides feedback by commenting the user’s rides and progress;

vi. Rewards: The end-users are awarded with badges (virtual or real) for accomplishing an achievement;

vii. Win States: Users’ victory or loss conditions are determined in each challenge.

After designing the app in Adobe XD, screen connections were made so that the participants could test and use all the features available at the moment (see the Navigation section in Chapter 5). A script was delivered to all participants and whereas it was read by the researcher to the participants involved in the focus group and eye-tracking, it was sent to the cyclists’ interviewees.

While the focus group participants tested the app without any problems, the eye-tracking session had some mishaps. As explained before, even though several eye-trackers can handle corrective eyewear (e.g. glasses, contacts lenses), there were some difficulties in calibrating the

6. DATA ANALYSIS, EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

GAMIFICATION AND SENIOR CYCLO-TOURISM: DESIGNING AN APP FOR THE MIONE COMMUNITY

eye-tracker. In general, younger participants’ gaze tend to be more detectable than senior citizens, due to age-related eye conditions.

According to Bojko (2013), one of the recognized problems associated with older participants involves droopy eye lids, which cause the pupil to be partially covered by the eye lashes, resulting in data offsets or loss. Therefore, very few participants tested the app on the mobile stand for the eye tracker (Figure 48), but instead on the desktop, since the eye-tracker could track the participants’ eye gaze on that angle, since it was aligned with the device, as shown in Figure 49.

6. DATA ANALYSIS, EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

GAMIFICATION AND SENIOR CYCLO-TOURISM: DESIGNING AN APP FOR THE MIONE COMMUNITY

To evaluate the participants’ eye-tracking performance, the fixation points (i.e. the period of time where the eye is kept aligned with the target for a certain duration) and saccades (i.e. type of eye movement used to move the fovea rapidly from one point of interest to another) were taken into consideration.

According to Salvucci and Goldberg (2000), fixation can be divided into spatial criteria, including velocity, dispersion and area-based; and temporal criteria, including duration sensitive and locally adaptive. A fixation is composed of slower and minute movements (e.g. micro saccades, tremor and drift) that help the eye align with the target and avoid perceptual fading.

For the analysis, the researcher analysed the videos from the eye-tracking session and was able to recognize the main difficulties found in the app. These were: Dealing with digital devices; Understand the task; Find the task’s correspondent icons to move to the next task; and Understand the icons’ meaning.

While the participants who used the mobile stand had more difficulties due to dealing with a smaller display, the participants who used the desktop display had more saccades and difficulties in fixating the right icons. This act may be owing to the aging process of the eye. Figure 50 illustrates some moments of good fixation when performing a task, whereas Figure 51 shows fixation and saccades when reading the content and, lastly, Figure 52 illustrates pure disorientation without fixation, only saccades.

6. DATA ANALYSIS, EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

GAMIFICATION AND SENIOR CYCLO-TOURISM: DESIGNING AN APP FOR THE MIONE COMMUNITY

Figure 51 – Eye Fixation and Saccades in Smartphone and Desktop – Eye-Tracking

Figure 52 – Saccade due to Disorientation in Desktop – Eye-Tracking

In order to acknowledge Jizo potentialities, all the participants (i.e. Focus Group participants, Eye-Tracking participants and Interviewed Cyclists) identified the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the digitally mediated app (SWOT analysis), as shown in Table 23. In this table, there is an overall description by all the participants.

6. DATA ANALYSIS, EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

GAMIFICATION AND SENIOR CYCLO-TOURISM: DESIGNING AN APP FOR THE MIONE COMMUNITY

Table 23 – SWOT Analysis – Jizo

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

Invite a friend

See local routes

Information

Layout and Design

Tutorial Take photos Explore City Originality Accessibility Few Stats Icons identification Lettering size

Use worldwide Other apps

Be an official cyclo- tourism’ events app

Not be well promoted and divulgated

Use for other activities

Connect people from around the world

To motivate to cyclo- tourism

To sum up, it is possible to identify numerous strengths relative to the Jizo app (i.e. introductory tutorial, the functionality to invite friends for a ride and tracking their location; see local and touristic routes; ability to explore the city POI; take photos without leaving the app; all cycling information were available; originality; accessibility; layout and design) and opportunities (i.e. ability to be used worldwide; to be used for other activities; to be an official cyclo-tourism app; to connect people from all over the world; and motivate cyclo-tourism), as well as corrections to be made to face the weaknesses (i.e. icons identification; lettering size; and few monitoring statistics available) and threats (i.e. other apps; and to not be well promoted and divulgated). Some participants share their opinion not only about Jizo, but also about their experience in the involvement of this project:

“I enjoyed participating in this project, it was interesting, I felt like my opinion mattered and it was really useful.” - Focus Group Participant 03

“I hope that this app goes to the market, I bet it can beat other cycling apps because is so much more complete.” - Cyclist 19

6. DATA ANALYSIS, EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

GAMIFICATION AND SENIOR CYCLO-TOURISM: DESIGNING AN APP FOR THE MIONE COMMUNITY

Therefore, Jizo is a gamified digital app designed by and for senior citizens to adhere to cyclo- tourism, being, most likely, pioneer in that mission. This app does not only have gamified functionalities that can induce inner user’s motivations to cycling, but also important aspects for tourism such as weather prediction, popular routes, nearby conveniences, points of interest and information relative to the sport culture. These features combined are what makes this app unique, in comparison with other apps (see 4. Related Work).