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GAMIFICATION AND NUDGING TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING USER ENGAGEMENT IN MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING APPS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Hassan Auf ,
Jessica Dagman ,
Sara Renström  and
John Chaplin
Hassan Auf*
Affiliation:
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg
Jessica Dagman
Affiliation:
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
Sara Renström
Affiliation:
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden
John Chaplin
Affiliation:
Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg Institute of Clinical Sciences
*
Auf, Hassan, University of Gothenburg, Public health, Sweden, [email protected]

Abstract

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In the last decades, mental health disorders have been a growing source of the global burden of disease. Thousands of mental health apps are available nowadays addressing this problem, but studies show that the effectiveness of these apps is jeopardized by the low user engagement.

This study investigates the most potentially effective gamification and nudging techniques in design for improving engagement in mental health apps for young people, by carrying out app-reviews for top installed mental health apps on Google play store and connecting it with engagement data, in addition to conducting expert-interviews with professionals from gamification and design background.

From the findings, techniques that participated in improving retention rates included using app character for creating app narrative and user interaction, in addition to adopting a non-forcible language. While to improve app daily duration of use, simplification nudge, and stating the recommended minutes of use found to be useful. Personalization and social interaction techniques were potentially effective for improving the frequency of app daily use. For the young age group, using juicy feedback and high-quality gamification were recommended

Keywords

GamificationNudge theoryDesign for interfacesHuman behaviour in designDesign theory
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 1647 - 1656
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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