“Use of gamification techniques in app for smart cities projects”

Alina Gnerre

Our goalOur goal today is the analysis of gamification techniques and their use in smart city projects. We will analyze

the relationship between smart city and gamification and how you can apply gamification techniques in your

app, thanks to the example of NotiCity, a smart city app developed by KES ( www.kesitaly.it ). NotyCity has the

purpose of the management and the reporting of critical events on the territory of Verona, Viterbo and

Avellino city. Then we’ll see the implementation of the technical choices and the creation of a new prototype

version of a gamified NotiCity .

Game “we are all players”

GamificationThe origins of the term “gamification” dates back to 2010. The term “gamification” indicates “the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts”……in attempts to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals.

There are two kinds of gamification: intern or extern. Very important: not to be confused it with “serious game”!

Things are changing…

There are several reasons why games and gamification are becoming more common:

• Games are easier to build than ever before.

• The average age of a person who plays video games is getting older.

• Games are available on smartphones.

Games are no longer a dirty word at the office

It is not unreasonable to believe that within a short amount of time, the idea of games and gamification will be common in all workplaces and educational institutions.

Not convinced? Listen to this analogy that might help…

Five wrong reasons

1. Game and gamification are cool/awesome/fun

2. Everyone is doing it

3. Things will be effortless

4. Everyone loves game

5. It’s easy to design them

Five right reasons

1.Creating interactivity

2. Engagement

3.Opportunities for reflection

4.Positively change behavior

5.Authentic practice

Success stories: education, marketing and tourism

Success stories: eco-sustainability

Success stories: transport, health and wellness

Gamification techniques

1) Points -> reward

2) Levels -> status

3) Challenges -> achievement

4) Virtual Goods -> self expression

5) Leaderboards -> competition

Feeling of ownership, epic meaning

and calling: the desire of

participation is the desire to be part

of something much bigger than us,

to contribute to the creation of a

common good.

A smart city creates sustainable economic development and high quality of life by excelling

in multiple areas like mobility, environment, people and living. Excelling in these key areas

can be done so through strong human capital, social capital and/or ICT infrastructure.

“We should try to take a step

forward to the theme of

‘smart city’ that is already

innovative: when you think to

a smart city, you think to all

its services, but you have to

have citizens who volunteer

and emotionally are involved.

How you can achieve this?

Through videogames: using a

number of techniques that

make it a fun experience”F. Viola

I-City

• iCity is an IoT ready solution by KES with a set of innovative services and tools to monitoring the main areas of a smart city. iCity gathers and analyzes data from the city through smart objects (cameras, sensors, ...) and offers applications for security, mobility, environment and energy.

Target:

- Public administrations, to ensure smart services for more livable cities;

- Citizens, to take active part in the city life;

A video shows I-City

NotiCityhas been designed in a dual role: one to make people active part of the city with the ability to report critical events, the other in support of those who must take action to resolve the critical issues .

NotiCity: main functions

• Creating different types of geo-referenced reports ( accident , potholes , ... )

with an attached image

• Display lists of reports awaiting action and those stored

• Ability to change the flag status by staff authorizing intervention (new - work

in - resolved)

• Integration with iCity

NotiCity architecture

NotiCity is an hybrid app, adaptable to different

OS . The architecture is client-server. Server's

responsibilities are to receive queries from clients

and return the result. The server is based on REST

principles . The clients provide a user friendly

interface which will facilitate the construction of

the query and displays the results received from

the server.Requests to the server are made through Ajax

and jQuery.

Gamifying NotiCity

Gamification can influence cit izens’

behaviour in relation to many Smart Cities

concerns, such as participatory gover-

nance, tourism, culture, education, etc. The

“human” part of the city is gaining a

prominent position as a decisive factor in

good city policies.

ACTION/SCORE

Sign in +20 points

New valid report +50 points

Report with photo +10 points

New invalid report - 70 points

“bonus malus”

LEVELS1 0 points2 over 50 points3 over 200 points4 over 350 points5 over 550 points6 over 800 points

TOP over 1050 points

“signaller”

“guardian”

“duke”

“ancient roman”

“knight”

As his experience as a smart city citizen will go on ,

he will increase his score, he will win a higher level

and will scale leaderboard.

“sentinel”

The work done

To apply gamification techniques, and make the necessary changes, it was necessary to work on two fronts :

• Server side

• Client side

Server side

In order to keep track of new informations introduced by gamification techniques, it was necessary to update the tables in the existing database designed with MySql. It was added the column "score" in the "user" table. And it was created the table "level" with the maximum and minimum values for each level and the table "action" that describes the score associated with each activity.

Server side pt.2

These are the four methods added to API Rest:

• UserRanking(User id) called to show users ranking. It generates a group of arrays key-value that will be the leaderboard.

• UserInformation(User id) called to show the score of a single user. It returns all the informations about the user, for example his score.

• DeleteEvent(Event request) called by system to add a score after a valid report.

• ApproveEvent(Event request) called by system to subtract a score after an invalid report, that will be deleted.

Client side

It was made a graphic restyling of UI

with the aim of making the user

experience more immersive and

captivating. The easy of use, the

attractive graphic, but also any

sounds to be added to highlight the

sending of a report or reaching an

higher level, are all key factors for

success, as we learn from the world

of videogames.

Restyling it’s very important

before…

Restyling it’s very important

…and after

NotiCity

The future of GamificationStudies show that by 2020 there will be significant advances in the use of gamification and that more than

half of all companies will have “gamified” the innovation processes, and that gamification is the area where

most large companies have plans to invest in the short term. Certainly one of the major application

development areas of gamification will be precisely that of "citizen engagement", as demonstrated by the

importance that the theme plays as part of Horizon2020 program of the European Commission. In the long

run, gamification may just become the normal way we design, implement and interact with the world

around us. Research believes that gamification will continue to evolve.

Also in the argument of this paper it is possible

to imagine further developments in citizens

e n g a g e m e n t a l l o w e d b y g a m ific a t i o n

techniques. The most significant challenge is

the transition from pure report feature to the

active participation to city’s problems. In other

words, "close the loop" by the activation of

initiatives by volunteers who take charge of a

problem’s solution.

From reporting to do something

Recommended Reading

• “Actionable Gamification - beyond points, badges and leaderboards” Yu-kai Chou

• “The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook” Karl M.Kapp, Lucas Blair, Rich Mesch