Design&Research 2 with Ursula Lagger
I interviewed one of my colleagues about gamified apps and their feelings about it. I wanted to share the interview and my thoughts because I reckon that it is relevant to my topic.
Notes
Transcript
Thank you for letting me interview you.
What is this about?
It’s about apps, engagement and gamification. Please tell me about an app you have on your phone that uses gamification and has you super engaged.
Let me check. What do I have? I mean, totally Duolingo, like the best example ever and also the features that we were doing for our financial app (App Design course) that was also for engagement and I think you can do any app engaging and funny but honestly like it shouldn’t be a good example.
It’s fine if you tell me about Duolingo.
I think for instance sometimes I use AliExpress and they use this like “oh you want this?” or “try to use this” with coins or something, that always pisses me off when when I open the app and I see like “oh, you want €10? Let’s buy something” or something like this. I never check and it just an example but honestly, I don’t really have any. Like, it is not working.
Is Duolingo working for you?
Yes, I don’t really use it because I think it does not really complete the goal of learning a language. It’s not for this sense of like learning something, you get it? But you don’t really learn so they give me vacation and that helps I guess.
What do you think about Duolingo‘s engagement strategy with the notifications and the passive aggressiveness?
I mean, this is probably why I’m not using it because I’m too tired of this and like I think generally just learning the language in this way it’s not helping. I was always quitting the Duolingo, but I know people who are on it every day and they see these notifications, they set it up. They put a big widget on their menu so they see the streak and like the announcement. I don’t know. I think not inappropriate for that or maybe they’re just bad levels. I think that it could be better too, so you actually go to a level and don’t see a random sentence.
Let’s switch this up a little bit. Do you know what citizen science is?
Citizen science… a person who lives in certain place and I don’t even know what? Maybe it’s some like studies that are local and like you can actually study the community somehow.
I’m gonna explain what it is. So citizen science is a project where normal people just like you, citizens, they can participate in science and become a scientist and they can for example report a plant species they see on their hike and submit it to this application and this data gets forwarded to scientists who can track where this plant is spreading but it can be done with many different things. It usually involves reporting because there’s a lot more citizens than scientists, so it makes sense that the population also helps with science.
Have you ever been a citizen scientist?
I don’t think I have ever had the opportunity.
It’s usually also done on applications, for example I have one. It’s called iNaturalist, where you take photos of plants and animals and identify them and it sends the data.
Why do you say it’s like you’re becoming a scientist?
Not an actual scientist, but contributing to science. You’re just sending data. You take a picture of a mushroom and then you see it on a map.
I didn’t know that, because I also have a mushroom app but I didn’t know that picture is actually being sent, like I don’t remember.
It depends on the app like some projects are just to help you identify the species, other are sending data and are citizen science projects.
What would make you use a citizen science app regularly?
I’ll describe it to you: something free, not using this kind of effect and then in two weeks you need to pay for it, to get use certain properties you should have a subscription. Or make a one time payment so you would be contributing some money and then you have it for you. What else? What in the app would keep you engaged to use it regularly?
Maybe you can think of some communication features. Other features that you like in apps that make you use them regularly is make some profit that I can get from it. I don’t know. I honestly don’t really get this concept very well. Is there any other example? Except recognising plants?
For example, there is another project that you use during the night and you report the light pollution, so you say “I can’t see any stars in the sky tonight” although there are no clouds, you send it and then they know that in that area there’s a lot of light pollution going on.
for example something else except It’s possible to put it should be more limited locally. I think maybe it should be about climate pollution, about the air quality or plants like vegetation, or water quality.
Alright, thank you!
Postscript
I forgot to make an introduction about the topic, but the questions slowly lead into it. I tried to actively listen and find some key concepts in my interviewee’s answers, while also improvising some questions (follow-up questions) based on their answers. Next time I would try to explain less and learn more from my interviewee.
Summary
To make my citizen science platform more engaging, I want to research how people perceive gamification and if it affects their usage of an app. I first asked questions about gamified apps the interviewee has used. Then I shifted to citizen science, in order to find out how I could make a reporting app more engaging.
Reflection
The interview made me realise that a concept I am already familiar with due to my research might not be so clear for other people, so it is important to always briefly explain key concepts. I also think that some questions caused confusion or were not answered, so I could have formulated them differently or broken them down into easier concepts. For instance, instead of saying “ tell me about an app that uses gamification and has you engaged” I could have said “how do you feel about streaks?” or “What emotions do you feel when using Duolingo?”.
The last answer was the one that gave me the most important information. The interviewee mentioned that they like when they get something from an app, like information about mushrooms. In my app I definitely need to add some educational content so users can learn about the stars. The interviewee also likes it when an app is free without any locked features, which is also important to me. They finally said that they appreciate it when something feels “local”. In my case, this could be tips on where to stargaze in your area, tasks to go explore a certain area that needs more reports and the option to read reports that were submitted close to you.
