The Ph.D. School of Communication, Public Relations and Advertising is announcing the defense of a new thesis on Tuesday, March 23rd 2021 called Gamification Applied to User Interface. A Tool for Increasing Consumer Engagement,authored by Georgiana Lavinia (Tar) Voicu from the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences.
The aim of the thesis is twofold. On one hand, the research aims to offer a broad overview on the way game elements are used in different applications. On the other hand, based on this gamification overview, the study intends to understand the causal relationship between the use of game elements within an application and their variations and the consumer perception and behavioral intentions.
The methodological design of this research uses both quantitative and qualitative means for the content analysis of the gamified applications (N=99) and SNS in order to study the current approach in the use of game elements. Additionally, the results of the content analysis guide the process of conducting an experiment that aims to assess the users’(N=150) perception on gamification through an online survey. The users are split into three groups (a control group receiving a non-gamified application and two experimental groups, which receives two application presenting a different degree of gamification within their user interface). The experience with the given application is evaluated in terms of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, elements enjoyed, overall enjoyment, rewarding experience, aesthetic appeal, and future intention to use the application.
Findings suggest that most used game elements in the existing gamified mobile applications are Points, Avatars, Achievements, Levels and Rewards that aim for the core drives of development & accomplishment, ownership & possession and social influence & relatedness. Moreover, the experiment reveals results from which one can conclude that the presence of game elements might increase the general engagement level of an interaction.