A Gamification-Based Framework for mHealth Developers in the Context of Self-Care

Abstract

This work investigates how gamification is used in self-care applications. Evidence in the literature indicates that the development of gamified mobile health applications has not taken into account the user's profile in order to correctly use the game elements in the solution; there also cases in which the use of gamification goes beyond the main purpose of the application, which is to treat health. This results in inefficiency in the use of the gamification strategy. To overcome this problem, this paper presents a gamification-based Framework, called Framework L, a method which incorporates concepts and practices in terms of two dimensions, Self-Care and Gamification, so that an mobile health application developer can design his application. In this context, adaptive gamification experiments were carried out in different ways. The first aims to improve the user experience when performing a manual test for the player profile. The second experiment uses machine learning to classify the user by player profile. These aspects make up the adaptive gamification cycle. The framework evaluation used the mixed method composed of a questionnaire and an online interview with experts. The results indicate that the framework helps developers marshal mobile health applications, primarily by encouraging user engagement.