Research Article
Let them play: experiences in the wild with a gamification and coaching system for young diabetes patients
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1145/3154862.3154931, author={Rieks Akker and Randy Klaassen and Kim Bul and Pamela Kato and Gert Jan Burg and Pierpaolo Bitonto}, title={Let them play: experiences in the wild with a gamification and coaching system for young diabetes patients}, proceedings={11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare}, publisher={ACM}, proceedings_a={PERVASIVEHEALTH}, year={2018}, month={1}, keywords={gamification digital coaching diabetes education}, doi={10.1145/3154862.3154931} }- Rieks Akker
Randy Klaassen
Kim Bul
Pamela Kato
Gert Jan Burg
Pierpaolo Bitonto
Year: 2018
Let them play: experiences in the wild with a gamification and coaching system for young diabetes patients
PERVASIVEHEALTH
ACM
DOI: 10.1145/3154862.3154931
Abstract
In this paper we describe a platform that integrates gaming and coaching for adolescent patients with type 1 diabetes and results from user evaluations of the platform. The purpose of the platform is to support patients in diabetes self-management through educational game playing, monitoring and motivational feedback, and to support patients’ care givers. We describe the design of the platform referring to principles from health care, persuasive system design and game design. The virtual coach is a game guide that can also provide personalized feedback about the user’s daily care related activities which have value for making progress in the game world. We report about user evaluations in the wild which revealed that some assumptions made about how users are connected to the platform were not satisfied in reality, resulting in less optimal user experiences. We discuss challenges with suggestions for further development of integrated pervasive coaching and gamification platforms.