Jussi Holopainen

GEELab Europe, RMIT University, Karlsruhe, Germany

Behavior Change Techniques,

Playability Heuristics and

Mobile Health Games

Health games?

Increase physical activity

Encourage healthy diet

Game as motivator

Why mobile?

Personal

Social

Always on

Range of sensors Pretty much everyone has one

Behavior change techniques?

CALO-RE taxonomy

40 behavior change

techniques

Michie, S., Ashford, S., Sniehotta, F. F., Dombrowski, S. U., Bishop, A., & French,

D. P. (2011). A refined taxonomy of behaviour change techniques to help people

change their physical activity and healthy eating behaviours: the CALO-RE

taxonomy. Psychology & Health, 26(11), 1479-1498.

[…]

5. Goal setting (behaviour)

6. Goal setting (outcome)

7. Action planning

8. Barrier identification/problem solving

9. Set graded tasks

10. Prompt review of behavioural goals

11. Prompt review of outcome goals

12. Prompt rewards contingent on effort or progress

towards behaviour

13. Provide rewards contingent on successful

behaviour

14. Shaping

[…]

Playability heuristics?

47 heuristics in 3 categories • Game Play

• Coolness/Entertainment/Humor/

Emotional Immersion

• Usability & Game Mechanics

Desurvire, H., & Wiberg, C. (2009). Game usability heuristics (PLAY) for evaluating

and designing better games: The next iteration. In Online Communities and Social

Computing (pp. 557-566). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

[…]

• The game world reacts to the player and

remembers their passage through it.

• Changes the player make in the game world are

persistent and noticeable if they back-track to

where they have been before.

• The game goals are clear. The game provides

clear goals, presents overriding goals early as well

as short term goals throughout game play.

• The skills needed to attain goals are taught early

enough to play or use later, or right before the new

skill is needed.

[…]

Game design?

• BCTs as inspiration in concept creation

• BCTs and heuristics as guidelines

during game design

• BCTs and heuristics in design

evaluations during different phases of

development (e.g. checklists for

playtesting)

Does it work?

Yes!

[based on my not-so-humble-opinion, more robust method evaluations to follow]

Questions?

jussi.holopainen@rmit.edu.au

http://geelab.rmit.edu.au