I’m still playing along with the coursera course on Gamification. (See my initial reaction here, and my first assignment here).

This week we get our second assignment (out of three). This course only runs 6 weeks (August 27 – Oct. 8) so we are now into week three.

Our work consists of quizzes and short written assignments. I haven’t seen the final yet but I would imagine it is the same format as the quizzes, only longer.

Here’s the scenario this week:

Project Part II: Motivation

You are approached by Ryan Morrison, the mayor of a medium-sized city in the Midwest of the United States.  He has heard that you know a lot about gamification and believes that gamification techniques can transform city government.

He would like to start with the health of city employees.  The city has 50,000 employees and they happen to have exactly the same rates of obesity as the U.S. average: 34.4% overweight (but not obese) and 33.9% of them are obese.  53.1% of the city’s employees do not meet the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for aerobic physical activity and 76% of them fail to meet the Guidelines for muscle-strengthening activity.  The city pays for health benefits for its employees and this cost is a huge part of the city budget.  Economists in Mayor Morrison’s office have estimated that a 3% improvement in the average physical fitness of city employees would amount to a US$94 million reduction in annual city health costs; a 5% improvement would save US$188 million. 

Describe in general terms a gamified system that could effectively motivate behavior change to address the challenge presented above. Specifically, explain how the system would effectively incorporate intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, or both.Your answer should address the fact that this is an internal gamification project, targeted at the institutional goals of the city government.  The system can use any technology (or no technology!), so long as the resources required seem justified by the scope of the opportunity.

Here’s my Response

Goal: Improve Physical Fitness of City Employees

Context:

• 50,000 employees
• ~ 1/3 are overweight and another 1/3 are obese (which means only 1/3 are a healthy weight).
• About 1/2 do not meet the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for aerobic physical activity 3/4 fail to meet the Guidelines for muscle-strengthening activity
• A 3% improvement would save $94M; 5% would save $188M

Resources:

U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines: http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/adults.html

It is important to set reasonable goals, or they will not be attainable. The city has a very large number of employees which would include everything from office workers to outside grounds keepers and summer camp councilors so the level of physical fitness is likely to vary widely.

There are many approaches that can be taken, each one requiring different tactics. Two of these are:

1. Target the 1/3 who are overweight but not obese.
2. Target these who are obese.

Two obvious approaches would be to try to:

1. Encourage healthier diets
2. Increase the level of activity

It is assumed that there is already some sort of employee database system used to track and process payroll, benefits, and other things, and that all employees have some sort of ID that can be modified or augmented to include access to the fitness system.  I would suggest tapping in to this using a magnetic strip or chip technology which could be used to access the system from various locations that connect to the main database. It would involve creating an application similar to FitDay, shown in the attached screenshot (http://www.fitday.com/). It includes tools for tracking food intake, exercise and other activities, goal setting and tracking, and various other things. WiiFit also has similar tools, but is less comprehensive. Acceptance and use of such a system will be greater if it is easy to use and fun, so incorporating gamification elements could be beneficial.

The intrinsic motivation comes from both the fun that can be introduced through Gamification and from people’s desire to be healthier (it is reasonable to assume that no one actually wants to be unfit). The intrinsic motivation to become healthier is extremely important here, but many are easily discouraged – especially those who are very obese, so it is essential that small improvements be both encouraged and rewarded at the beginning. Competition must be handled carefully – many who are reasonable fit may find competition motivating, but those who are obese may see it is stressful so cooperative approaches must also be offered.

Other extrinsic rewards, such as badges, points, leveling up, etc. must be carefully matched to the individual player’s starting point (fitness-wise). They must be allowed and encouraged to set realistic goals. One way of handling this is to provide a ‘league’ system that places people in groups where all have similar levels of fitness.

A key aspect is ensure that “good behaviour” is sufficiently rewarded, but that “bad behaviour” is not punished.

This system would include ways to track diet and exercise, and would require support from all city departments:

• Cafeterias must offer healthy food choices (and players can be rewarded for choosing them).
• “Check-In Stations” can be created that allow employees to record physical activity easily, like when they take the stairs instead of the elevator or if they walk for 10 minutes during a break, and so on.

In order for this to succeed, the system must be easy to use so it should start out simple and can then become more complex as people become familiar with it. FitDay for example is too complicated initially – it has the functionality that would be required, but very little in the way of gamification. WiiFit is more gamified but has fewer features.

This is just the start, but there’s a 500-word limit on our answers.

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