ChoreIsle - Bachelor Project

Context

Since I was allowed to explore any topic I desired, I chose to center my bachelor's thesis around video games. To get the proper guidance and resources for the research, I contacted DrSc. Jan Storgårds from CADGI to setup a collaboration. After some brainstorming, I landed on the topic of: finding motivation to do chores and gamification. More precisely, research and apply a design intervention, which can increase motivation to do chores through gamification.

During a 10-week period, I needed to conduct the research and then develop a concept solution based on the gathered insights. The main aim of this project was to practice how to conduct well-executed scientific research and how to apply the collected data in a practical context.

Process

Research

My research approach followed the concept of triangulation made up of: Literature review, Qualitative interviews, and Concept testing.

Research triangulation

Thanks to literature review, I learned about the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, Self-Determination Theory, and gameful design. All three of these played a crucial role in my research and design approach. During qualitative interviews, I had extensive discussions with 9 representatives of my chosen audience and with 3 experienced game designers.

Participants of qualitative interviews

I utilized ChatGPT to transcribe recordings of the interviews and then identify any patterns or trends among the interviewees. This allowed me to get a quick overview of the results. However, I also made sure to compare the transcriptions and summaries with the original recordings to make sure no results were fabricated by the AI.

The gathered insights served as the design foundation of my concept solution. More importantly, I identified that there is a suggestion that a connection exists between how people get motivated to do chores and similar repetitive tasks in video games. However, the sample size I was able to gather was not enough to make a definitive answer. For the purposes of this project, it allowed me to confirm my suggestions and dive deeper into the underlying factors of the connection.

Key takeaway from the qualitative interviews

Design pillars I defined for myself after the interviews with game designers

Prototype Design & Development

To design the prototype, I adapted this gameful design approach - The Lens of Intrinsic Skill Atoms. First, I needed to define my target audience by using insights from the interviews. I created a user persona and Jobs To Be Done.

User persona and Jobs To Be Done

Next, I started ideating on the possible solution that could fulfill users' needs and diminish any frustrations while achieving their jobs. For the purposes of this project, I defined the target outcome as achieving intrinsic motivation during the process of completing chores. During brainstorming, I utilized Innovation Stems and Design Lenses.

Some of the Innovation Stems I utilized to fuel my brainstorming

The key Design Lenses I applied during my ideation

Lastly, I synthesized all ideas into three key concepts: Building, Virtual Pets, and Farming. To decide which concept to pursue further, I storyboarded the best ideas. I ultimately landed on the Building concept as the most promising in terms of long-term progress and customization.

Synthesis of my concept solution ideas

The storyboard of the chosen concept (first iteration)

With the design of the concept solution defined, I moved over to Figma to develop the prototype. I included only the core activity of building islands as a form of progression = every time the user completes a chore, they get to build an island in the app. The design of the mobile app is my own, but I utilized assets from Matt Anderson and Rodrigo Medeiros to quickly finalize the prototype and start testing with the intended users as fast as possible.

The core user loop of the app

Testing

To finalize research triangulation, I needed to test the developed prototype. This kind of research topic would require at least a week long test with minimum 20 participants, but due to time constraints, I arranged a three-day test with 7 representatives of the target audience. The test participants used the prototype 1-2 times each day, whenever they needed to do any household chores. That way, I tried to simulate how they would use the final product and get more reliable data.

The structure of the test

I utilized a mixed test method of of quantitative questionnaires based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, and qualitative user interviews. The data from the questionnaires suggested that the prototype does not yet achieve the desired outcome and the consequent interviews confirmed this result. There were many aspects users highlighted as problematic and in need of improvement, for example, the progress system or narrative integration.

Questionnaire results (all values would need to be at 6.00 and above to achieve intrinsic motivation)

Key insights from the user interviews

Result

In this bachelor project, I explored the subject of finding motivation to do household chores. To research this topic, I looked at video games and I tried to understand how players get motivated to engage in similar repetitive tasks in video games. My aim was to uncover psychological and game design principles that are at play and transpose them to create a new context for the process of doing chores through a gamified prototype.

Testing the first iteration of the prototype on seven participants provided some baseline results that can help with further development of this concept. However, due to limitations of this project, the results are not definitive and cannot yet be generalized.

In conclusion, although this project did not gather any definitive results, I created and tested out a process that can be used to further research and develop any gamification concept focused on finding motivation to do chores.