Heuristic Evaluation for Gameful Design

Abstract

Despite the emergence of many gameful design methods in the literature, there is a lack of evaluation methods specific to gameful design. To address this gap, we present a new set of guidelines for heuristic evaluation of gameful design in interactive systems. First, we review several gameful design methods to identify the dimensions of motivational affordances most often employed. Then, we present a set of 28 gamification heuristics aimed at enabling experts to rapidly evaluate a gameful system. The resulting heuristics are a new method to evaluate user experience in gameful interactive systems.

Validation in the Web Domain of a Formal Process to Evaluate the Usability of Software Applications: An Approach based on the Heuristic Inspection

“…The evaluation team must come together to determine the most appropriate set of usability heuristics according to the specific software domain. Several works state that the ten usability principles proposed by Nielsen fail to cover relevant aspects of usability when they are used to evaluate new emerging categories of software systems such as e-commerce applications [17], transactional websites [9], applications for touchscreen-based mobile devices [30], videogames [13], banking systems [26], etc. There is enough evidence in the literature proving that the conventional Nielsen's heuristics are no longer suitable for the kinds systems that currently exist [10].…”

A Design Space For Meaningful Structural Gamification

“…Specific domains such as education [2], or health [17] rely more especially on structural gamification (defined as the use of game elements that do not alter the content of the activity [8]). To be effective, the motivational affordances of such gamified systems (properties that allow users to satisfy their psychological needs [22]) should be designed with a deep understanding of human motivation [3,22]. Recent studies emphasise the importance of meaningfulness in the design process [14,3,16].…”

“…Recent studies emphasise the importance of meaningfulness in the design process [14,3,16]. Game elements should make sense to users, creating explicit connections to the given activity, and supporting feelings of competence, autonomy and relatedness, identified as essential in Self-Determination Theory [19,22,16]. On the contrary, non-meaningful elements may be ignored or worst may demotivate users [16,3].…”

“…On the contrary, non-meaningful elements may be ignored or worst may demotivate users [16,3]. Even if gameful design methods have emerged recently [3,22], affording engaging experiences in non-game interactive systems remains challenging. During design sessions designers, developers and other stakeholders, who may not have the same level of expertise regarding gamification, have to select relevant game elements and decide how to implement them for a concrete situation.…”

Risky Gadgets to the Rescue - Reframing In-Car Technology Use as Task Engagement

“…That is, challenges, feedback, or other elements of gamified driving need to line up with the objectives of safely maneuvering a vehicle and responding to critical events. More recently, Tondello et al (2016) compiled a comprehensive set of heuristics for evaluating gameful design based on a review of guidelines by authors including Chou (2015) , Deterding (2015) , and others. These publications demonstrate a growing body of knowledge concerned with designing effective gamification.…”