Linköpings universitetSE–581 83 Linköping

+46 13 28 10 00 , www.liu.se

Linköping University | Department of Computer ScienceMaster thesis, 30 ECTS | Informationsteknologi

2016 | LIU-IDA/LITH-EX-A--16/051--SE

Gameful design through TheLens of Intrinsic Skill Atoms

Jakob Bäcklund

Supervisor : Anders FröbergExaminer : Erik Berglund

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Abstract

Creating applications and systems that effectively motivate users is very importantboth in business and education. Using design practises from game development in non-game settings to exploit its ability to engage players has become increasingly more popularin recent time to attract and encourage users. This study examines how to effectively andsystematically develop an application using a method based in both game design and inter-action design to develop a learning application for programming. The results demonstratesthe strengths of the applied iterative prototyping and powerful design tools of the specificmethod in a smaller scale project as well as the weaknesses of the vague description of toolusage with risk of derailing in the design steps.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank anyone who helped me in completing this study, especially those who partic-ipated in any playtesting session and delivered valuable feedback.

iv

Contents

Abstract iii

Acknowledgments iv

Contents v

List of Figures vii

List of Tables 1

1 Introduction 21.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3 Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4 Delimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Theory 42.1 Teaching Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42.2 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.3 Gameful Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.4 Methods for Gameful Design and Gamification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3 Method 143.1 Design method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.2 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163.3 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4 Process 174.1 Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174.2 Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174.3 Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184.4 Ideation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184.5 Storyboarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204.6 First Iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214.7 Second Iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.8 Third iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

5 Results 30

6 Discussion 316.1 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326.3 The work in a wider context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

v

7 Conclusion 34

Bibliography 35

List of Figures

2.1 Example of code blocks in Scratch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.2 Screenshot of the intrinsic version of Zombie Division. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.3 The Lens of Curiosity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.4 General structure of a skill atom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.5 General structure of Deterdings skill atom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.6 The lens of intrinsic skill atoms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.7 Five steps in gameful design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.1 Simple sketch of the general level structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214.2 Main page with the first topic completed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224.3 Completed basic task. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224.4 Error message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224.5 All four test cases passed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.6 Four failing test cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234.7 Main page with the first snake mastered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244.8 Rewards for finishing the first quest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254.9 A challenge where usable functions are offered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254.10 The names and a short description of the usable functions seen in Figure 4.9. . . . . 254.11 Main page message with no completed chapters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284.12 Error message in case of "NameError". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294.13 Hint given to the problem of sorting a list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294.14 The solution for the last level shown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5.1 Average evaluation values rounded off to one decimal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

vii

List of Tables

2.1 Levels of Game Design Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1

1 Introduction

1.1 Motivation

Programming is a very attractive skill in today’s labour market and the demand for com-petent programmers has increased steadily for years. Learning programming is howeversomething that generally is seen as difficult and is said to take ten years of experience to be-come an expert in. Turning novice students into expert programmers over a course of about4 years in computer science educations is stated as impossible [39]. To generate a bigger flowof competent programmers into the market and to raise the level of skill they possess it isimportant to get people interested and involved in programming.

By forming a genuine interest of software development, the popularity of programmingclasses and educations could be increased. It could also lead to people experimenting withsoftware developing projects outside of school, work or other organised activities which is agood way of learning programming. By also teaching people basic programming skills theyhave somewhere to start from and knowledge to further develop.

Games and electronic games in particular have a certain way of engaging and motivatingits users to continue playing and learning the game without much of external rewards. Thishas been picked up by researchers, designers, teachers among others and using games forother purposes than just enjoyment has become increasingly popular in recent years. Vari-ously advanced learning games exists in a number of forms for many different types of fields.Game design has also found it’s way into interaction design in the form of gameful design or"gamified" applications as a way to try exploiting the motivating and fun factors that comeswith games.

1.2 Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine how to create an engaging computer applicationto spark an interest of software development and teach people basic programming skills byincorporating practises from game design.

2

1.3. Research questions

1.3 Research questions

Learning something new can be very challenging and confusing, being motivated and stim-ulated all the way is important in order to keep working and achieving good results. Beinggiven relevant information, examples and problems is important to learn skills and correctpractises but is often not enough to be motivated and stimulated. Good digital games arevery effective in stimulating and engaging it’s users, how could these practises be used tomotivate people while teaching them something new?

1. How can a learning application be designed to be gameful in order to engage and mo-tivate users?

2. How can a system for learning programming effectively be developed?

1.4 Delimitations

The focus of this study is to examine how to develop a motivating educational system usinggameful design, some effort is put in how to learn programming but this is not the focus.The scale and ambition of the implementation have to be limited to what a single person iscapable of developing alone in the given time of the project. I have little to no experience increating graphical content in form of electronic pictures and animations which will limit theinclusion of original visual content.

3

2 Theory

2.1 Teaching Programming

Most people have some form of connection to software via computers, smartphones or tabletsbut few has any greater knowledge of how the applications actually work. Software devel-opment is a very large field with a wide range of technologies, languages and terminology.Learning programming from scratch can therefor be seen as difficult and intimidating. Jenk-ins finds that a lot of students dread programming and describes how his job as a teachershifted from presenting information and syntax to a role as motivator to engage student inprogramming activities [16].

Programming Languages for first-timers

There is a large number of different programming languages developed to suit various needsavailable today. Some languages have very specific purposes while others suits an array ofsituations. There is also some languages that are specifically made to be easy to learn forbeginners and act as gateways to programming.

Scratch

Scratch is a programming environment that is aimed at novice programmers and especiallychildren. Scratch focuses on media manipulation and require very little writing, instead theusers combine predefined command blocks to create heaps of blocks similar to assemblingpuzzle pieces or building blocks. Blocks can be sequentially lined up in certain orders or ex-ist unordered with a specified action or command that triggers them. Such blocks could forexample include manipulating objects, conditional statements or mathematical expressions.This can be used to create games, movies, interactive stories or presentations. The differentcommand blocks are shortly described in English and are easy to understand, they can alsobe run by simply clicking them which offers the user an easy way of testing the code. Thismakes for an intuitive environment and learning Scratch can be done by experimenting withdifferent blocks and combinations with relative ease. A study of children learning program-ming through Scratch in an after-school-center shows how the youth independently developtheir skills [23]. Very little was explicitly taught to the youth, instead they experimented withtheir own chosen projects and were only assisted by mentors on request. The study shows

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2.1. Teaching Programming

Figure 2.1: Example of code blocks in Scratch.

what kind of commands that were most frequently used and discovered a usage increaseof less intuitive commands the more experience the user obtained. Some type of conceptssuch as variables seemed hard to grasp for the children but started to be used more once aknowledgeable mentor had shown them how they could be used.

Python

Python is an open source project that can be described as a dynamic, object-oriented script-ing language [30]. Being a scripting language it is simple and easy to use and read, dynamictyping means that is doesn’t require type and size declarations which slims down the syn-tax. Python provides more advanced programming tools than normally found in scriptinglanguages which makes it more powerful for larger applications. Some of these tools arebuilt-in object types such as lists and dictionaries, tools like sorting and concatenation, li-braries and third-party utilities. Python is an interpreted language which makes it possibleto run the code or parts of the code without compiling entire programs, this makes it easyto experiment and test code as you go. Python is a high level language which hides a lot ofwhats going on in the background, this makes it easier to grasp for a novice since you donot need to know a lot of syntax and technicalities to program simple things. The languageis widely used for scripting and web applications which makes it a very useful language toknow. There is also a big community around Python that is constantly developing new toolsand libraries that can be used, posting a numerous of guides and examples on the Internetand helping beginners to learn the language. The simplicity and yet powerfulness of the lan-guage combined with the widespread use of Python makes it a very popular language forfirst-time learners [15] and in 2014 Python was the most common language that was taughtin the first programming class among the highest rated Universities in the United States [13].

Java

Java is a strongly typed object-oriented language that is designed to be portable and runnableon as many platforms as possible. It is one of the most used programming languages in theworld which makes it a very useful skill for programmers. Java gives a decent view of whatis going on in the background and gives the programmers good tools to keep the code wellstructured. Since it is strongly typed and designed as a very robust language the programmerneeds to have more knowledge about what is going on to do simple things than in Pythonsince you often need to use more code and syntax in Java and the code must be compiled tobe able to run which demands a bit of instantiation and overhead. Java is still a very popularfirst programming language since the learner get a good grasp of how to think logically like aprogrammer and how programs are computed and run which can later be translated to otherlanguages with rather ease [15].

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2.2. Games

2.2 Games

Games of today come in a multitude of shapes and forms on more platforms than ever be-fore. We have the more traditional games outside on courts and streets, boardgames, cardgames or games with just pen and paper to electronic games on computers, consoles andmobile phones. Games can be played alone or with thousands others in massive multiplayergames, they can revolve around an elaborate story or completely lack one, have a clear end-point of when the game is finished or continue endlessly. Even though games can be sodifferent we can easily distinguish when we are playing a game. McGonigal proposes that allgames share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation[24]. The goal is something to work for and gives the player a sense of purpose, the rulesdescribes what the player can and cannot do on the way to the goal, this encourages someform of strategic thinking and practise. The feedback system lets the player know well it isperforming or gives an indication of some form of progression in the game, this provides en-couragement and motivates the player to keep playing. Voluntary participation implies thatall participants willingly accepts the goal, rules and feedback which allows multiple playerssimultaneously. The freedom to enter or leave the game at any time ensures that the experi-ence is viewed as entertaining and not mandatory. Suits offers another less precise definitionsof games: "playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" [36]. Thissums it all up in a sentence in a convincing manner implying that games are simply a formof accomplishing some tasks for entertainment. This is a much wanted behaviour of usersof any application, the urge and motivation to continue using the application voluntarily.The four traits described by McGonigal are something to look for and use when trying toimplement game-like elements.

Motivation in Games

To recognise what makes people want to play games for hours and hours it is important toknow what we humans are motivated by. A well researched theory of this with empiricalsupport is the self-determination theory which proposes that all human beings have a funda-mental psychological need for competence, autonomy and relatedness to others[31].

Competence relates to a persons sense of skill and ability to perform and accomplish de-sired things in the world. Autonomy is the feeling of acting consciously and willingly to-wards one’s own goals and needs, to fully agree with the activity one is engaged in andrelatedness is the need of feeling a meaningful connection to others.

The self-determination theory gives us some form of guidelines to work around and a mo-tivational model of video game engagement based in self-determination theory was proposedin a study by Przybylski, Rigby and Ryan [29]. The study examines how gaming experiencesviewed as fun and enjoyable are correlated to the fulfilment of fundamental psychologicalneeds, common game elements such as violence is not found to be a significant motivatingfactor. This is an appropriate model for game elements in a non-game setting since it connectsto basic human psychology, not content bound characteristics and it is based in well studiedand accepted theories. Games relates very well to the need of competence since they revolvearound challenges as discussed earlier [36][24], this makes up for a good opportunity to learnand most games capitalize on this by gradually increasing the difficulty of challenges in thegame. This lets the player learn the strategies and skills needed to improve and succeed inthe game. Game challenges also offers autonomy by letting players choose which challengesto tackle and how to conquer them given the aspect of voluntary engagement in the game.The need of relatedness may also be fulfilled if the challenges involve or affect other playersin the game. This gives us several aspects to take into account when designing game chal-lenges such as creating learning curves that are not so steep that the player gets overwhelmedand frustrated by not making progress in the game nor so flat that the player gets bored ofnot fulfilling the need of competence. This phenomena of users seeking an optimal mix of

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2.2. Games

challenging but not to difficult tasks is called flow [6] and is quite common when discussingmotivation in games [19][25][14][8].

Learning in Games

Games are not only excellent in entertaining people, Norman argues that games generallyupholds the essential needs for educational means and that they can create an engaging edu-cational environment [27]. Using electronic games for educational purposes has been aroundsince the 1950’s [7] and it has become more and more common in recent years with the im-proved technology and increased popularity of computer games. In 2001 Prensky proposedthat computer games was a better way to approach students as it spoke to their habits andinterests [28].

Habgood and Ainsworth analyzed the effectiveness of intrinsic integration in learninggames by developing three versions of the mathematical learning game Zombie Division,playtesting it with children in the ages 7-11 [14]. In the intrinsic version mathematical ques-tions was integrated into the gameplay, in the extrinsic version the questions were given in be-tween game levels and the questions were removed all together in the control version. Intrinsicintegration in learning games builds on the concept "intrinsic motivation" which means thatpeople are intrinsically motivated to engage in activities where there is no apparent rewardmore than the activity itself. The study showed that the intrinsic version was the most appre-ciated and they argue that it is the core mechanics of a game that is essential to creating aintrinsic relationship between the game and educational content, not fantasy or story.

Figure 2.2: Screenshot of the intrinsic version of Zombie Division.

Kapp identifies 7 different types of knowledge or skills and existing learning techniquesthat are effective for each type [18]. He explains that designing gameplay that incorporatesany of these different techniques in the form of challenges and game mechanics is an effec-tive way to teach the targeted knowledge or skill. Declarative knowledge, also known as factualknowledge is information that can only be learned through memorization, some examples arefacts, terminology, acronyms and syntax. Learning declarative knowledge revolves aroundmemorization techniques such as repetition, association, organizing facts into groupings andelaboration, linking information to a known context. An example game technique relatedto elaboration is creating a story which introduces information to the player in a deliber-

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2.3. Gameful Design

ate context and order which encourages the player to memorize the information in order toprogress and excel in the game. Conceptual knowledge is a group of related objects or ideas thatshare one or more common attributes, for example the concept of customer service or money.Concepts are usually taught using describing metaphors, examples and counter examples ordescribing relevant defining attributes of the concept. Rules-based knowledge is the informa-tion of relationships between concepts, rules define a preferred behaviour with predictableresults, a common structure of rules are "if/then" which may explain the effects of an actionor fact. Common teaching techniques for rules are providing examples and role playing sit-uations where the rules apply. Procedural knowledge are ordered step-by-step instructions forperforming certain actions to achieve a specific result. Organizations are filled with proce-dures to be followed and are often taught by starting with the big picture to put it in a contextand teaching how and why of the procedure. Soft skills or principles are guidelines for be-haviours in social interactions including for example negation skills and leadership skill. Softskills may be taught using analogies to existing knowledge or taking the role of a person ina certain situation where the skills are needed. Affective Domain is the domain of attitudes,values, beliefs and emotions. Most of these are things you may think need no teaching butresearch has shown that pro-social games can have a very positive effect in influencing be-haviour by for example encourage participation or showing possible success. PsychomotorDomain is the combination of physical skills and the cognitive plane, knowing when to dou-ble or single click on a computer or knowing how turning a steering wheel will affect the car.This domain is commonly learned through observing the skills being used by someone elseand by practicing. [18]

2.3 Gameful Design

If gamification is the means of using game design elements then gameful design is typicallythe end result [8]. Designing for motivation and enjoyment has become increasingly morepopular in recent years and this is exactly what gameful design is aiming for. The basic prin-ciple of gameful design is to mimic the way games motivate people by fulfilling their basicpsychological needs and incorporate these elements in a non game system. When bridginggame design with interaction design a essential problem appears since they contradict eachother in an essential aspect.

Interaction design is focused around making human computer interaction as simple, easyand friction free as possible [11] which contradicts the definitions of games where players areexposed to challenges for the sake of challenges [36]. This infuses the difficulty of addingmotivating challenges in appropriate forms and situations, this is an issue that also existsin the world of games, the game itself should not be difficult to use but the gameplay in itshould be challenging. Juul and Norton [17] examines this idea that a good game shouldhave a easy to use interface and difficult gameplay but argues that it is not always the caseas the difficulty of using the interface sometimes is a part of the gameplay experience. Thisis possible since games are not designed to accomplish something of significance outside ofthe game. As gameful design mixes both interaction design and game design it should bothbe simple to use and challenging at the same time but for example adding puzzle challengesto an already confusing part of a system would not be appreciated by most users. Gamefuldesign must be approached differently and to combine these two design styles one shouldnot create new challenges in the system but instead identify natural, preferably skill-based,challenges in the system, repackage and present them in a interesting and motivating fashion[8]. Gameful design in a learning context should identify what type of skills or informationthat is to be taught and design appropriate challenges and game mechanics in order to teachthis [18].

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2.4. Methods for Gameful Design and Gamification

2.4 Methods for Gameful Design and Gamification

The term gamification started to be widely adopted in 2010 [9] alongside with parallel termsthat are still invented and somewhat used, terms like "funware" [37], "playful design" [12]and "behavioral games" [10]. In spite of this gamification is arguably the most commonlyused term and has been defined as "the use of game design elements in non game contexts" [9].When defining gamification in their study, Deterding and his colleagues puts emphasis on therelation to games, not play as it denotes a broader more free-form of behavior than gaming.They also explain the meaning of game design elements as elements that are characteristicfor games, where they are found in most games but not necessarily all and serve a significantpurpose in gameplay. The study defines five levels of abstraction in game design elementsaccording to Table 2.1. The listed game design elements are merely tools to be used andthe study states that gamification is a term for means of using game design elements in nongame contexts where gameful design is typically the end result [8]. Gamification is often usedto transform an already existing non game system into a "gamified" system with game-likeelements.

Level Description Example

Game interfacedesign patterns

Common, successful interaction designcomponents and design solutions for a knownproblem in a context, including prototypical im-plementations

Badge, leaderboard,level

Game designpatterns andmechanics

Commonly reoccurring parts of the design of agame that concern gameplay

Time constraint,limited resources, turns

Game designprinciples andheuristics

Evaluative guidelines to approach a design prob-lem or analyze a given design solution

Enduring play, cleargoals, variety of gamestyles

Game models Conceptual models of the components of games orgame experience

MDA; challenge,fantasy, curiosity; gamedesign atoms; CEGE

Game designmethods Game design-specific practices and processes

Playtesting, playcentricdesign, value consciousgame design

Table 2.1: Levels of Game Design Elements [9].

Most research on gamification and methods for gameful design revolves around whatcharacteristics and design values to strive for [26], some ideas of what kind of dynamicsand aspects of game elements that works in certain gamification situations [21], but mostresearch lack a distinct design method. Aparicio, Vela, Sánchez and Montes [1] propose afour-step gamification process based in self-determination theory but the process is vaguelyand narrowly described and leaves out how to choose and adapt game mechanics to thesystem. "Smart gamification" [20] is the earliest documented industry method which revolvesaround creating a "player persona" and constructing a "player journey" containing goals andchallenges on three levels of involvement in novices, experts and masters. A number of latermethods has followed in it’s tracks [40][38][18][22][3] which all proposes a design processsimilar to the following one compiled by Deterding [8]:

1. Identify system owner goals.2. Identify trackable behaviors of end users that support these goals; quantify their relative

contribution in a metric.3. Profile and segment end users using player typologies (usually “Bartle Types”[2]).

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2.4. Methods for Gameful Design and Gamification

4. Select and specify game design patterns:

a) Translate the quantified system owner value of end user behaviors into point val-ues displayed back to users.

b) Articulate an ordered sequence of explicit goals for end users, consisting of sets ofbehaviors or point thresholds (quests, challenges, levels).

c) Define feedback to display upon single user actions (“engagement loop”) as wellas reaching point thresholds or goals (achievements, badges, leader boards), in-cluding potential rewards (virtual items, customization options).

5. Choose additional game design patterns.6. Playtest.7. Build and deploy.8. Use analytics of user behaviors to monitor system performance and guide the improve-

ment and release of new content and features.

But these methods falls short in some aspects as they skip to identify skill-based chal-lenges in the system, fail to describe how to select appropriate game patterns and lack fun-damental interaction design steps like iterative prototyping according to Deterding who pro-poses another design method, the lens of intrinsic skill atoms [8]. The method builds on threeconcepts: design lenses, skill atoms and intrinsic integration. Intrinsic integration is the ideathat gameful design should build on inherent user goals in the system, the other two conceptswill be explained in the following sections.

Design Lenses

Design lenses was developed in 2008 by Schell [32] as a way to examine and analyze gamedesign without taking your own personal tastes and thoughts in to much account. A designlens is represented by a small set of questions which you should ask yourself about yourgame to analyze one certain design principle. For example see Schells "Lens #4" in Figure 2.3which is created to analyze how your game sparks curiosity. Throughout the book Schell in-troduces 100 different design lenses each dedicated to a different perspective with the idea ofcombining a multitude of single purpose lenses to see the whole picture of your game design.Scott later saw the potential of using design lenses in other areas than games and defined 3design lenses of different nature to show how design lenses can be useful in everyday design[33].

Design lenses does not offer specific solutions or describe how to make design choices.By consisting of questions the design lenses simply helps designers look at their work fromspecific points of view and shed light on all design aspects in a deliberate manner. This makesthe lenses versatile and makes them appropriate for various design and domains, the lensesare not only confined to detecting issues but can also be used to further improve and developalready good parts of a design.

Skill atoms

Skill atoms is a self contained representation of feedback loops regarding skill based activitiesin games [5]. Cook describes a structure of event loops where the player makes a move, thegame simulates the chosen action, gives feedback to the player who uses the information toupdate her perceived model of the game illustrated in Figure 2.4. He argues that this is howplayers are motivated to learn the skills and rules in a game, through practise and not throughreading a manual.

Deterding takes the concept a step further by adding additional factors to the process andputs focus of the atoms on challenges [8]. The refined skill atom is illustrated in Figure 2.5where the challenge is centered even though the purpose of the atom is still to represent howskills in the game are acquired.

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2.4. Methods for Gameful Design and Gamification

Figure 2.3: The Lens of Curiosity [32].

Figure 2.4: General structure of a skill atom [5].

Figure 2.5: General structure of Deterdings skill atom [8].

To give an example take the classic word game Scrabble: the Goal is to have the mostamount of points when the game is over. The actions are placing the tiles with letters on the

11

2.4. Methods for Gameful Design and Gamification

board (objects), the rules specify where you can lay which tiles, since they has to form validwords, how much points they give and when the game is over. The user get feedback in theform of points of all players and the challenge is placing tiles in a way that you gain a lot ofpoints while not giving the other players opportunities to score more points than you. Themotivation is generally competence need satisfaction.

The Lens of Intrinsic Skill Atoms

By combining the three concepts of skill atoms, design lenses and intrinsic integration Deter-ding landed in The Lens of Intrinsic Skill Atoms which is shown in Figure 2.6. The lens describesthe elementary purpose of gameful systems and delivers essential questions to frame the corecomponents of gameful design. The lens is quite broad and targets the entire design processas opposed to Schell [32] who developed a multitude of more narrow lenses. The lens ismeant to be the at center of the gameful design method, outlining the goals, challenges andcritical aspects of the design and to be used to target activities, generate ideas and analyzewhile iteratively prototyping but not to completetly eliminate the use of other skill atoms andlenses. Both skill atoms and additional design lenses are necessary to the design process instructuring motivational challenges and improving all aspects of the system.

In pursuing her needs, any user’s activity entails certain inherent, skill-based challenges.A gameful system supports the user’s needs by both directly facilitating their attainment,removing all extraneous challenges, and by restructuring remaining inherent challengesinto nested, interlinked feedback loops of goals, actions, objects, rules, and feedback thatafford motivating experiences.

1. What motivations energize and direct the activity?2. What challenges are inherent in the activity? What challenges can be removed

through automation or improving usability? What challenges remain that the usercan learn to get better at?

3. How does my system articulate these inherent challenges in goals? (How might itarticulate them to connect to the user’s needs and motivations?)

4. What actions does my system offer the user to achieve these goals?5. What objects can the user act on to achieve these goals?6. What rules does my system articulate that determine what actions are allowable

and what system changes and feedback they result in?7. What feedback does my system provide on how successful the user’s actions were

and how much progress she has made towards her goals? (How might I make thisfeedback clear, immediate, actionable, speaking to the user’s motivations, affordinga sense of competence?)

Figure 2.6: The lens of intrinsic skill atoms [8].

Design steps

Deterding proposes a design process that consists of five steps that exists in two variations,innovation and evaluation, where innovation is adapted to a process to create a completelynew system and the evaluation variation is used when transforming an existing system. Fig-ure 2.7 shows the five steps of the innovation variation [8].The process is quite intuitive and isbased on identifying and analyzing the user’s needs, what purpose the system should serveand what kind of challenges that arises with it. From there create skill atoms, generate ideasand develop them using design lenses, continue with iterative prototyping until satisfactory

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2.4. Methods for Gameful Design and Gamification

1. Strategy

a) Define target outcome and metricsb) Define target users, context, activitiesc) Identify constraints and requirements

2. Research

a) Translate user activities into behaviour chains (optional)b) Identify user needs, motivations, hurdlesc) Determine gameful design fit

3. Synthesis

a) Formulate activity, challenge, motivation triplets for opportuneactivities/behaviours

4. Ideation

a) Brainstorm ideas using innovation stemsb) Prioritze ideasc) Storyboard conceptsd) Evaluate and refine concept using design lenses (optional)

5. Iterative Prototyping

a) Build prototypeb) Playtestc) Analyze playtest resultsd) Ideate promising design changes

Repeat steps a-d until desired outcome is achieved

Figure 2.7: Five steps in gameful design [8].

results. Deterding mentions that skill atoms and design lenses are meant to be used throughout the process where it is suitable but little of this is explicitly mentioned in the steps.

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3 Method

3.1 Design method

I have chosen to use a version of Deterdings design method [8] adopted to my context, goalsand resources for developing the system. The following steps are based on the process de-fined by Deterding but I have chosen to skip or alter some parts:

1. Strategy

a) Define target outcome and metrics

Define the purpose and goals of the system and deciding how to evaluate it, furtherexplained in Section 3.3.

b) Define target users, context, activities

Define the target audience and what the base of the application will be using existingprogramming tools as models.

c) Identify constraints and requirements

Delimit scope, budget and technical requirements has more or less been done beforebeginning with the design process as it was a part of planning the study from the be-ginning but it is still an important part of the process.

2. Research

a) Identify user needs, motivations, hurdles

Identify what generally motivates people to learn programming and what keeps moti-vating people who have started learning. Also to examine what types of anxieties anddifficulties are generally associated with learning programming.

3. Synthesis

a) Identify knowledge and skill types and formulate inherent challenges in target activity

14

3.1. Design method

This step is adopted to better fit the context of learning programming. Formulatingactivity, challenge, motivation triplets does not seem very productive since the entiresystem will revolve around the activity of learning programming and the general moti-vation behind this. Therefor the focus will be to identify the skill types defined by Kapp[18] and inherent challenges in the activity. These types and challenges will be used inthe brainstorming step and to serve as a base for creating skill atoms.

4. Ideation

a) Brainstorm ideas using innovation stems

Brainstorm how to make the generated activities exciting and motivating while stillbeing informative and educational using innovation stems. Innovation stems is a tech-nique to inspire people to think in different ways to generate ideas. The basic idea is tocombine different concepts to force the thought process in a certain manner. Some ex-amples are: "How might the system spark <motivation> in <challenge>?", "It’s like <existinggame> for <activity>." and "How might I make <challenge> more exciting using <lens>?". Anumber of suitable skill atoms and design ideas of the system as a whole will be createdfrom this.

b) Prioritize ideas

Since I am alone in this project, prioritizing will not consist of voting of any kind butwill be fairly straight forward in selecting the ideas thought to work best for the system.

c) Storyboard concepts

The highest prioritized ideas will be further developed and illustrated with sketchedstoryboards visualizing goals, actions, objects, rules, feedback, challenge and motiva-tion. The sketches will be fairly basic due to my lack of experience in sketching andmight be complemented with descriptions or pictures from other contexts, the impor-tant part is that the concept becomes more concrete and well thought trough. Variousdesign lenses and mainly the lens of intrinsic skill atoms will be used to assure that thedesign is gameful.

d) Evaluate and refine concept using design lenses

Design lenses will play it’s part in earlier steps including storyboarding but an extraglance will be taken on the storyboards through the lenses to confirm that they aregameful and appropriate.

5. Iterative Prototyping

a) Build prototype

This will be explained in Section 3.2.

b) Playtest and Analyze playtest results

This will be explained in Section 3.3.

c) Ideate promising design changes

The analyzed results will give an idea of what works in the application and what needsimprovement, this feedback will be taken into consideration and some parts of the ap-plication will possibly be chosen to be in full focus when starting the next iteration.

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3.2. Implementation

I skipped Deterdings steps Translate user activities into behavior chains and Determine gamefuldesign fit in the Research step as I did not see behavior chains as a valuable asset to my project.Determining gameful design fit has been more or less done before starting the study and sinceimplementing a gameful system is one of my research questions aborting this is not really anoption, I will instead analyze the gameful fit in chapter 6.

3.2 Implementation

I have chosen to implement the system as a web application hosted by an open web serverto make it easier to distribute to people in other locations than myself as it only requires aweb browser and an Internet connection. It is also quite easy to create graphic content withHyperText Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the game logic isimplemented with JavaScript, jQuery and Skulpt[35] which is an in-browser implementationof Python. The server is written in Python with the web framework Flask.

3.3 Evaluation

In the end of each iteration I will evaluate the application by letting people playtest it andevaluate their experience. I will try to find people in the target audience of non-programmersthat want to learn to playtest but I will also let other people be test the prototype to get anotherpoint of view and opinion on aspects like programming practices. I will have to adopt thelength of the playtest sessions to how big the application is at the moment and how difficultit is for the user to take in the content. Since it is not just a simple application to click throughbut I actually want the users to be challenged and to learn a bit of programming since I aminterested in their capability of doing so and what they think about the experience.

User evaluation will be done in two different ways, the evaluation in the first couple ofiterations will rely on interviews and discussions as I am interested in details of the userexperience, what exactly was found difficult, confusing, good or too easy and possibly why.This will give me a better grasp of what to change and add to the next iteration as I can askfollow-up questions unlike in a question form.

The evaluation of the final version is done using Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI)[34] which is an evaluation tool used to measure subjective experiences related to user ex-periments. The instrument is widely used in experiments related to intrinsic motivation andis well grounded in motivational theory and research. The evaluation scale is divided intoseven categories: Interest/Enjoyment, Perceived Competence, Effort/Importance, Pressure/Tension,Perceived Choice, Value/Usefulness, and Relatedness created to measure different aspects of in-trinsic motivation in the given activity. The idea behind IMI is to choose a couple of factorsout of the categories based on the purpose of your evaluation and create a form out of anumber of statements regarding the factors listed in the tool. Test users answer how welleach statement coincides with their experience by choosing a number on a scale from oneto seven, all answers are then used to calculate average sub scale scores to be used in theanalysis of the application. I have chosen to use Interest/Enjoyment, Perceived Competence, Ef-fort/Importance, and Value/Usefulness as sub-scales as they corresponds to the key aspects ofmy system. These factors and scores will be analyzed as the final result and evaluation of theapplication.

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4 Process

This chapter describes how the design and implementation process was carried out by fol-lowing the steps proposed in Section 3.1.

4.1 Strategy

The purpose of the system is to motivate people to learn programming and wanting to con-tinue progressing through the application. The key aspect of the system is the ability tomotivate and engage people in using the application which is a subjective matter of how theusers experience the application. The IMI evaluating device in Section 3.3 is therefor used todefine and access relevant and measurable metrics and scores of user experience and intrinsicmotivation in the application.

I have chosen Python as the programming language to learn in the application since itis a fairly easy language to read and grasp on a basic level and it is simultaneously verypowerful and widely used. I am confident that it will serve a good basis of how to thinklike a programmer while not having too advanced and confusing syntax. The target usersare people that are open to learn basic programming in general and Python programming inparticular. Learning programming is often associated with schools and universities since it isoften a part of higher technical educations but there are a multitude of courses and programson the Internet for people to learn programming on their own. This application is meant toserve a similar purpose of engaging people in learning programming on their own, I willtherefor base the programming content and information on popular web guides that teachesPython to beginners to have a educational base to work with.

The scope of the project is limited to what I can achieve as a lone developer on the system.Because of this, highly advanced technical features and elaborate graphical content are notfeasible in the given time frame. I will focus on developing the system around effectivecore mechanics and create running prototypes that work on a smaller scale rather than wellpolished perfect products.

4.2 Research

There are a number of different reasons to learn programming, for example to begin a careerin software development, to widen ones technical competence, to develop hobby projects

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4.3. Synthesis

or out of curiosity to simply get an understanding of how computers and software works.People with a lack of technical understanding and knowledge about software tend to have ahard time grasping how computer programs actually are created. This makes for a potentialbig hurdle and anxiety around diving into to this world which might be seen as vast andcomplex. An important task for the system is to defuse this tension and create a view ofprogramming that is inviting, logical and inspiring.

4.3 Synthesis

The target activity of the system revolves around learning how to program and out ofthis i identified three basic main challenges: generating code, understanding code and debug-ging/correcting code. These challenges are somewhat intertwined since both generating andreading code is a part of correcting code and by learning to read code you also learn how towrite code and the other way around. This makes it impossible to completely distinguish thechallenges from each other but I mostly see this as a good thing since different challenges mayoffer different mechanics which provides more variety in the application while still servingthe same purpose.

There are different types of knowledge out of the ones described in section 2.2 to belearned in the field of software development, I identified three of the most prominent types:

• Declarative knowledge represents a big part of programming since it is very relevantwhen it comes to learning syntax.

• Conceptual knowledge is represented as the concept of software and the writing andexecution of code. There exists an array of different concepts in programming of vary-ing magnitude.

• Procedural knowledge can describe instructions for certain solutions but it is also riskyto only think in strict procedures as there often exists many ways of accomplishing aspecific outcome. Learning some step-by-step instructions of solving certain problemsand tasks can still be very useful as it beneficial to learn good programming practicesand mind-sets.

4.4 Ideation

The brainstorming of ideas was divided into two categories, level design and game structureas a whole. Level design is the package of challenges/tasks and game mechanics the playerare faced with, the rules of gameplay chunks in order to make problem solving gameful. Itis not necessarily a fully contained segment with a start and a finish of a problem or missionbut could be more vague and mixed together with other levels or content depending on thesetting. The game structure is the broader view of the system as a whole, the general idea anddesign of the game. How and when tasks are presented, how to progress and be rewardedby completing tasks in a gameful fashion.

Game structure

The following innovation stems was particularly useful when brainstorming structure ideas:"It’s like <existing game> for <activity>." and "How might the system spark <motivation-type> in<challenge>?". Developing a fitting structure is crucial in forming a fun and motivationaldesign since it affects the entire application, by creating an engaging structure you have afirm platform to build on when designing levels which provide the actual learning content.Below are some of the different generated structure ideas paired with some analysis on theirfit:

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4.4. Ideation

1. Dividing the system into chapters containing levels representing different concepts orareas of programming. To get access to the next world you need to complete a numberof levels in the current world.

This is a rather common game structure in certain game genres as it forces the player tomaster challenges in a certain competence area before continuing to the next which allowsthe designer to create a decent learning curve with learning content in a fitting order whilestill giving the player a sense of freedom and autonomy.

2. Solving a problem to get to the next, following a pre-determined order in a story likesetting.

This is a popular game structure since the designer can focus on a single path throughthe game and make it extra thrilling. It is a good way to ensure that content is learned in aspecific order and it is easy to tailor an exciting story that the user plays through. But on thedownside it erases player options and most sense of autonomy.

3. Completed levels are scored by suitable point system (e.g. time to completion, numberof code rows or number of errors) and can be replayed to achieve better scores andrecords. All levels are open at all times but with a recommended order of play through.

The full autonomy of this structure gives the player complete power in choosing levelswhich is good for intrinsic motivation but can complicate level design, learning curve andgood learning practise since it might be difficult to learn certain concepts or techniques with-out some prerequisites. The player might be frustrated and confused by facing problems it isnot competent enough to solve. The idea of improving level scores and beating records is agood way to visualize improved competence and can quite easily be adapted to a form whereplayers can compete with their friends and other people online with scoreboards which mayfulfill the need of relatedness.

4. Finishing certain challenges rewards the player with items that are necessary for theplayer to reach further parts of the game.

Gathering or achieving something before getting access to further levels is a commonand logical game design making the players decisions and accomplishments meaningful.The player can choose among some challenges but the order of play through is somewhatpre-determined and the order of learning content can be partially controlled, this structuremotivates the players to accomplish tasks in order to progress and can spark some curiosityin what items you can find making the items an important part of the gameplay.

5. Finishing certain challenges gives you access to new functions you need to use to com-plete other challenges.

Learning and receiving new functions is a similar structure to receiving meaningful itemsin autonomy and content order. It injects some curiosity on what new functions to learn andadditionally shows progress in competence in a very concrete way as the players clearly cansee the functions they have mastered.

6. Gain points in challenges depending on how well you did by a suitable point systemwhich you need certain amount of to unlock new challenges.

A simple structure of player choices with the limitation of having to work on earlier levelsin order to progress. This makes balancing level points critical since there is a risk of unfairpoint distribution over levels which may lead to players struggling or on the other end skip-ping important parts because they achieved enough points anyway. It is a competitive layoutas it encourages players to strive for highscores and possibly trophies.

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4.5. Storyboarding

The strength and weaknesses of the ideas was weighed towards each other and analyzedin respect to self determination theory in order to pick a structure to further develop. Eventu-ally idea number 5 was chosen to further develop, creating certain key problems that blocksfurther levels to be reached and needs certain functions to be solvable. It fits well in order-ing content where I can use key levels to assert that the player have acquired the requiredfunction and enough knowledge to progress to new challenges and the player can clearly seethat they have learned something new as they can solve a problem that they were not able tosolve before learning the function. It leaves room for autonomy as I could make key levelsunlock a number of new challenges simultaneously where the players can choose in whichorder they accomplish them.

Level design

The level design brainstorming was based on common learning techniques in declarative,conceptual and procedural knowledge and used innovation stems and design lenses to pack-age techniques in a gameful manner as tasks. The idea was not to pick one single task idea torealize but a several since they are separate concepts that can easily be mixed into the systemto get some variation. Below are some of the generated ideas:

• Following a tutorial and perform specified actions.

• Translate human language to programming language.

• Answer multiple choice questions regarding program output.

• Find errors by traversing code rows one by one and answering if it is correct or not.

• Achieving a certain output by:

– Ordering a number of code snippets.

– Generating row by row by choosing one out of a number of alternatives.

– Choosing variable values, loop intervals and function inputs in an existing pro-gram.

– Writing code from scratch.

– Completing existing functions.

– Call available finished functions.

– Fixing broken code.

4.5 Storyboarding

A storyboard consisting of a number of sketches was created, the sketches was purposelyfairly basic and lacking of details. The storyboard was created to get a view of the structureand main feature of the application, not to serve as a finished design. The basic structurewas based in a main page which links to different topics containing information and tasksrelevant to that topic. An example topic is Boolean, all levels in this topic are focused aroundteaching the concept of the data type Boolean. The different topics would be in a ordered listbut are not always required to be completed in that order. The levels in a topic are strictlyordered, the user must complete the first one in a topic before it can go on to the second one.The user can always go back and forth between available levels and topics.

The general structure of levels was sketched and I decided that all levels would sharethis general structure to keep a uniform layout. A basic layout was designed with initialinformation, text describing a task, eventual hints for the task and the tools for completingthe task like a code window. I chose to start with two main task types with the possibility

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4.6. First Iteration

Figure 4.1: Simple sketch of the general level structure.

to add more further on if it was deemed appropriate in the iteration process. The first onewould consist of a code window with a complete or near complete code example, the code cannot be altered with exception for some marked words or blank spaces as seen in Figure 4.1.The idea is that the user should alter these spaces so that the code will generate a certainoutput. This task idea is meant to be used in the initial parts of the application since it leaveslittle room for misunderstanding and errors, the user is guided towards the correct answerand is provided with helpful information and hints. The focus is to get the user used to theprogramming environment, learn the syntax by reading and understand the general conceptbehind programming without putting to much pressure on them.

The second type of task consist of a code window that the user have full control over, thewindow will be filled with varying amount of code in it’s initial state. The goal is to generatea certain output like in the first task type but given more options and possibilities, this alsorequires more effort from the user to complete the task. The idea is to test the users and givethem more of a challenge when they have understood the underlying concepts.

4.6 First Iteration

Prototyping

the focus of the first prototype was to construct a working website with fairly basic func-tionality, creating appropriate challenges and programming tasks paired with educationalinformation to achieve a basis to proceed from. The iterative process and evaluation resultswill be used to tweak the difficulty and order of learning content and how to improve thesystem as a whole.

The following pictures are screen-shots from the first prototype and show some of themost important parts of it. The main page after log in displays all different topics available tothe user, at first only one topic is available but more are visible and unlocked by completingcertain topics. Each topic is represented by a varying number of levels which contains somenew information regarding the theme and a correlating task. The user gets to the next levelby completing the task with a correct result and the topic is finished when all it’s levels arecompleted. There is a total of 8 different topics ranging from printing strings to functions andlooping over lists.

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4.6. First Iteration

Figure 4.2: Main page with the first topic completed.

The tasks in this prototype all revolves around writing code of some sorts but to variousextent. The first four topics only contains task where the user only fills in highlighted gaps ofthe code such as values and variables to achieve a desired result as seen in Figure 4.3, 4.4.

Figure 4.3: Completed basic task. Figure 4.4: Error message.

The later levels are more open and gives the user full control of the code area to write func-tions that should achieve and return something specified in the task. Sometimes the functionis partially written and asks the user to correct or finish it and sometimes it is completelyblank. Four test cases are run when the user presses the "Run"-button to control the validityof the function and that it outputs the correct result. The level is completed when all testcases are passed and the user can continue to the next level which is shown in Figure 4.5. Ifthe code fails to compile or one or more test cases are false the user have to correct their errorsand try again as seen in Figure 4.6. Two of the test cases input, output and desired result areshown while the other two are hidden, only revealing if they failed or not. This is becauseseeing the input, output and desired result of certain test cases is valuable feedback and canbe used to figure out why it passed or failed. The two hidden cases are present to keep theuser from hard coding specific output for the given input as it is bad programming practise.The game structure idea of needing achievable functions to complete key levels in order toprogress was not fully implemented in this initial prototype, this is only present once and the

22

4.6. First Iteration

Figure 4.5: All four test cases passed. Figure 4.6: Four failing test cases.

level where the function is achieved is just before the level where it is used leaving little touser choice and autonomy.

Playtesting and evaluation

A smaller playtest session was conducted when the first prototype was ready where test usersplayed through the website until they had finished all topics. The they were interviewedregarding their experience and thoughts.

The overall opinion was that the prototype was easy to use and understand while it wassomewhat challenging and quite educational to complete. Even though most of the applica-tion was clear there were a number of smaller problems and ineffective details pointed out.The general idea and gameplay layout was appreciated but some aspects of the prototypewas lacking in particular. The users wanted to see more feedback from the system, especiallywhen completing a challenge or topic. The feedback from failing to compile or generatingthe wrong output was perceived as sufficient but more help regarding errors was sought af-ter. The amount of text for information and task explanation felt appropriate but the usersthought that there could be a bit more general text regarding the purpose of the applicationthat was funny and encouraging. The test users liked the programming tasks, they wereviewed as relevant and placed in a good order to understand and learn the concepts. Theyliked that the structure and general layout of tasks was consistent and did not find themto repetitive. All task difficulties were deemed appropriate except for one task which wasviewed as a bit to difficult to solve.

Improvements ideation

This iteration had focused on constructing a working intuitive prototype with an appropriatelearning and difficulty curve and since the feedback regarding educational information andtasks where overwhelmingly positive the brainstorming was focused more on system feed-back and encouraging features for the next iteration. Feedback and encouragement are someof the key points in gameful design and a number of design lenses was used extensively toideate improvements since the playtesting showed that the system contained suitable chal-lenges that served their purpose but the system as a whole needed a more coherent andgameful structure.

Most of the brainstorming and sketching revolved putting the levels in a larger contextand how to generate more expressive feedback. A concept of gathering certain made up

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4.7. Second Iteration

types of python snakes by completing topics was chosen to be developed further out of thegenerated ideas. This idea also contained a visual display of which snakes are currentlycaught and which are not. This was a mix of clearly visualising progress by awarding certaintokens and adding a little bit of story, restructuring the goal of completing all topics to thegoal of collecting all snakes. The concept of using achievable functions as keys to lockedtopics was refined by adding challenges with key functions at the end of certain topics andlevels requiring them in the last chapter.

4.7 Second Iteration

Prototyping

The iteration was started by fixing some smaller rather concrete errors and design flaws thathad come up in the evaluation. The design was updated but the general structure of thewebsite was kept. The reward system with snakes to collect was implemented with sometext changes adapted to the new context. Topics were renamed quests and finishing a questresults in unlocking a snake and sometimes additional quests as seen on the reward page inFigure 4.8. A row with images displaying which snakes you have found was added to themain page where the snakes that are not yet mastered are greyed out as seen in Figure 4.7. Thetext changes done mostly revolved around making the text fit the new context and elementsin the application but it contain fairly little story content, some lines when the user receives asnake, a little introduction and a couple of finishing words in the end. This is intentional tokeep the amount of text to a minimum since the application is innately pretty text heavy. Theevaluation of the first prototype indicated that the existing amount of text was appropriatebut some additional text probably could be good as long as it was fun and light. This meansthat I could have tried to add more text and it might have improved this prototype but Idecided to start small and let further playtesting and evaluation determine if even more storytext is deemed good.

Figure 4.7: Main page with the first snake mastered.

Some challenges was reformulated and the challenge that was deemed the hardest andto mathematical for the context in playtesting ended up being removed completely. Threecompletely new levels that was intended to improve the impact and significance of achievablefunctions was added. One of the challenges was in the topic "Lists" where the user writes a

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4.7. Second Iteration

Figure 4.8: Rewards for finishing thefirst quest.

Figure 4.9: A challenge where usablefunctions are offered.

function that swaps places of values in a list. The other two levels were added to the finaltopic "Looping over Lists" where one of them should be solved by using a function previouslywritten in "Loops". The final level uses the list-swapping function and another function alsowritten by the user earlier in the final quest. The extra functions are present and usable in alllevels in the eighth quest as seen in Figures 4.9 and 4.10, even in the levels where they are notvery suitable to use. The user is also never told when to use which functions, this is to trainthe user in analysing the available tools and when they are useful. The use of extra functionsis never mandatory in any level, they are merely there to make the solution easier to writeand better in terms of programming practise, it also shows that most problems have multiplesolutions.

Figure 4.10: The names and a short description of the usable functions seen in Figure 4.9.

Playtesting and evaluation

The conducted playtesting sessions for this iteration was done with new test users not presentin the sessions for the previous prototype. The playtesting was done in the same way, withthe users playing through the application and being interviewed afterwards, the interviewquestions was mostly the same but the follow-up questions varied depending on the answers.

A lot of the overall opinions were positive and the playthrough seemed to be fun for theusers. The programming experience of the test users was very different which showed ratherclearly in the feedback. Users with little experience in the Python language but with goodprogramming knowledge in general went through the application rather fast and quicklypicked up on the challenge setup and Python syntax. They figured out how to solve thelevels and when they faced problems they could easily trace the errors and knew how to find

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4.7. Second Iteration

solutions for it. A user with very little programming experience and no knowledge of Pythonhad a bit more trouble in progressing through the quests but really liked the challenge. Theuser asked for help after getting stuck in one of the challenges and was helped to solve thatparticular level. The user thought that the information regarding the tasks and concepts wasgood and did not really feel that more of it was needed but the user felt that there was a bitlack of help when you got stuck. The user analysed the code but could not figure out whyit generated the wrong output and would have liked more hints on why this was or how tosolve it. The help that was given when the code failed to compile was viewed as better since itindicated which line that was faulty but it did not show a very explanatory error message. Itshowed what type of error it was but no examples on what could have caused it or commonways to correct it. The user thought that the difficulty was appropriate and the applicationwas educational, it was the feeling of getting stuck that was a bit frustrating and deterrent.

The game design and concept of unlocking different snakes was appreciated by the userswho felt like it was a fun reward and made some of them motivated to go through the chal-lenges just for the enjoyment of unlocking the snakes. Some users stated that they found thewebsite a little static in a way, one expressed an urge for something more dynamical to makethe website a little special for the specific user. It is pretty obvious that the application looksthe same for each user that has progressed equally much in the quests and the user wantedsomething to make it feel a bit more personal, so you could see that it was your account thatwas playing. Others said that they would like things to happen that depended on user ac-tions, for example hints or comments that was relevant to the user in the current situation.The setup of levels was found a little similar in the long run but also that it was comfortablesince there was a lot of new things at once in the content and that it would be hard to add a lotof new ways to take in the information and manage the practices. Most users said that theywould have like to see more diversity in levels if the game were bigger and spanned overmore concepts as it would let the user get more used to programming and how to processnew things. The size of the current prototype however did not need more diversified levelsand some thought it might make it more confusing.

Two people tested the application simultaneously side by side and there was a little bit ofa competition among them of who were to finish first which made them very engaged andmotivated. One of them said that they would have liked some way of connecting to otherusers and viewing their progress on the website and suggested that you could add otherusers as friends to compare their results with your own.

Improvements ideation

Something I wanted to address was the opinions regarding personalization and that the web-site felt a bit static. Personalization could be done in variously complex ways but my generalidea of it was to adopt the application to the user and it’s current status. No evaluationshowed that lack of personalization is a big problem which made me to not focus immenselyon it but to find a way to make the website feel a bit more adaptive and targeted to the specificuser. A easy way to target the user is to direct some messages directly to the user by usingit’s provided username in the text, for example: Welcome back Jakob!

Another idea of adapting the site to user status was to show messages based on progres-sion. I the number of finished quests to be suitable measurement of progression and that Icould adopt messages around this. The messages seemed to fit the main page since its thefirst page the user see after logging in and the page that the users return to after finishing aquest. Combining the tricks of directing a status dependant message to the user seemed likean easy way to decently personalize the application but it felt rather static to show the samewelcome message every time for a user that had not progress since the last visit. I drafted asimple structure of a number of different welcome phrases and text snippets for a number ofdifferent progression levels and a way to randomize among them to make it more dynamic.

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4.7. Second Iteration

So even if the number of messages still would be limited the users would not see the sametexts over and over if they reloaded the page.

Both evaluations in iteration one and two showed that the prototypes could offer morehelp when the user is struggling, getting stuck or having a hard time remembering conceptsthat has been encountered earlier in the application. To improve this a number of ideas re-garding more raw information in the levels, easier ways to go back to relevant previous lev-els and creating tools to let the user search for desired information was generated. To addeven more descriptive text was deemed problematic, especially concerning already coveredconcepts as it may result in an overwhelming amount of text and repetition. Adding moreways to reach appropriate information and examples in the application can help in refreshingknowledge but is not very effective or user friendly as it disrupts the user’s problem solvingby either moving the user away from the current challenge and back to other ones. Lettingthe user manually search for information promotes good programming practise as it is an im-portant and general skill in programming but it can be hard to find the solution by yourselfif the user do not know what is wrong or what to search for. It is also hard to build a tool thateffectively covers all relevant information and requires a lot of explanation, a way aroundthis could be to in some way incorporate an existing tool like Google search.

None of these ideas felt very gameful and made me think of how to design a solutionregarding the core challenge of writing code to achieve a certain result. The brainstormingcontinued around the lines of creating better and more descriptive error messages or hintsdependant on the current code since it encourages the user to write code and try out solu-tions. To receive hints the user needs to write code and if the feedback is good the user shouldbe able to improve the existing code or fix errors which creates a behaviour of learning fromanalysing mistakes and thinking constructively. Creating good feedback on user code re-quires taking all possible outcomes of the user generated code into account is complex andit is further troublesome since some challenges are implemented in different ways, demand-ing different approaches to hints and error messages. This spoke against the idea since itwould require a lot of time to implement and it could not be guaranteed that it would begood enough. The general idea was further develop to be simpler and easier to implement asit was a promising concept.

A variant where there would be a set of pre-defined hints for each challenge was sketched,for each time the user ran the code without generating a correct result a new hint wouldappear from this set. This would promote the desired pattern of the users testing themselvesforward but it would be considerably easier and quicker to implement. In addition to hintswhich are displayed when the submitted code successfully compiles but generates incorrectoutput the error messages which are displayed when the code fails to compile would beimproved. The error message would be general for all levels that include freely writing codesince compilation errors applies for all Python code. The existing messages already showswhat type of error that occurred and on which row, the idea is simply to extend the text tobe more explanatory of what the error type includes and what generally causes it. The hintsshould be more adopted to the current task in hand but a lot of hints could still be relevantfor multiple tasks.

Hints and helpful messages is a tool to keep users from getting stuck, but it is not guaran-teed to always work. Information are processed differently by different people and it is nextto impossible to make a system that can fully adapt to every persons need in guidance andadvice. This means that it is still fairly possible that some people would get stuck, frustratedand quit before they can work out the solution to a problem. A core purpose of the appli-cation is to spark interest for programming in people which would be prevented if it makessome users quit in frustration, even if they did good up to that point. Therefor an extra fea-ture was needed to be certain that no users ever gets fully stuck on a task. This is often solvedin courses by having knowledgeable mentors or assistants that can help less experienced pro-grammers with difficulties. Some form of this could be worked in to the application as youcould be able ask questions to other user in a chat, forum or other medium. This requires a

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4.8. Third iteration

decent number of experienced users to be online regularly on the website and since it will behard to achieve a test environment where this is always the case the idea was scrapped. Theidea of giving the complete solution to a stuck user was not to appealing as it might lead tothe user skipping to the next concept without understanding the current one. But it guaran-tees that the user can progress to the next level and hopefully the user will carefully read thesolution and understand why it works. It is a step to keep the user from quiting in frustrationand when considering the purpose of motivating and sparking interest in the user it seemedlike an appropriate feature. As a system showing relevant hints to the user on code submitwas to be implemented this could be used as a measure for when the user will be stuck andwill need some extra help. When the user has worked through all the hints twice withoutachieving a correct result you could assume that the user is stuck, it also works well withkeeping the user trying different code and solutions. A small feature was sketched wherea button would appear when all hints were exhausted, this button would show a workingsolution on the screen which the user could read and copy over to the code window.

4.8 Third iteration

Prototyping

Some improvements to the text was done and making it fit the new features and the overallusability and dependability of the website was improved. The main differences from thesecond prototype however was the addition of the four features: alternating messages on themain page, elaborated error messages, alternating hints for solving the programming tasksand the possibility of seeing the solution when stuck on a problem.

The messages on the main page was implemented with one set containing greetingphrases and four sets with short texts for different levels of progression. These was combinedtogether with the username in the form of: greeting + username + progression dependanttext. An example of this is seen in Figure 4.11.

Figure 4.11: Main page message with no completed chapters.

The more explanatory error messages was implemented by researching which error typeswere most common and why they were caused. Four probable error types was identified andanalysed by testing and asking test users what kinds of errors they had received. The originalmessage that showed the error type, which row, and for some types which particular wordor entity that caused it was kept. They were extended with the common cause of the errortype and some hints on how to fix it as seen in Figure 4.12.

A set of hints relevant for the current problem was produced for each full programminglevel. They were shown one by one in a rotating manner each time an incorrect result wasproduced as shown in Figure 4.13.

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4.8. Third iteration

Figure 4.12: Error message in case of "NameError".

Figure 4.13: Hint given to the problem of sorting a list.

The trick with showing a valid solution for the tasks is when to make it available, a so-lution including number of hints for the level and number of tries was implemented. If theuser has gone through all the hints twice the user was viewed as stuck and a button allowingthe solution to be visible appeared next to the run button as seen in Figure 4.14.

Figure 4.14: The solution for the last level shown.

Playtesting and evaluation

The final evaluation was done with all previous test users and additional new users. Theusers were told to play through the prototype and to fill out a question form based on theevaluation tool IMI described in section 3.3. The results of the evaluation is presented inchapter 5.

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5 Results

The final application is a challenge based website with 8 different topics of Python program-ming. Each topic contains 3-7 levels which requires the user to complete a programming taskto move forward to the next one, the tasks are increasingly larger and harder as the user pro-gresses in the application. The user are rewarded with a fitting python snake for finishing atopic and sometimes the unlocking of new quests.

The final application was tested and evaluated by 17 users with the use of Intrinsic Moti-vation Inventory. The tests was not supervised or controlled by me but performed by peopleon their own, test users was not restricted to the target audience of novice programmers.Each test user answered an evaluation form with 25 questions, each one relevant for one ofthe four chosen subscales: Interest/Enjoyment, Perceived Competence, Effort/Importanceand Value/Usefulness. The average values for each subscale is shown in Figure 5.1 where 7is the maximum value and 1 is the minimum value on each scale.

Figure 5.1: Average evaluation values rounded off to one decimal.

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6 Discussion

6.1 Results

This section discusses the evaluation of the final application and how it could have beenimproved given more time and resources. The difficulty of finding target users to test theapplication led me to let anyone who wanted be a test user. This was not ideal and hasto be taken into consideration when analysing the results but was seen as necessary to get asubstantial number of evaluations. The evaluation results indicates how good the applicationis in respect to the aspects of interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, effort/importanceand value/usefulness.

Interest/enjoyment got a score of 4,1 out of 7 which is just above the middle and relatesto how fun and interesting the users found the application. The enjoyment found in theapplication is likely connected to the interest of learning programming or solving basic tasksif the user is an experienced programmer since the entire application revolves around thismatter. The answers regarding this aspect was wide spread over the scale ranging from 1 to7 which indicates that the application does not appeal to everyone but is still very enjoyed bysome which coincides with the link to programming interest.

Perceived competence received 5,7 out of 7 which is fairly high and the highest ratedaspect out of the four examined. This aspect revolves around the users competence andconfidence in programming and Python and how well they improve and progress. A prettybig part of the test users had some programming experience which shows in the evaluationanswers as many seem very confident in their skill in general and compared to others whichspeaks a bit to why this aspect is rated high. It also indicates that less experienced usersfeel confident in their capacity and competence improvement. I think this is because theapplication starts small in what is expected of the user and gradually increases the difficultywith a number of helpful tools to keep the user on track.

Effort/importance received the lowest score of the aspects with 2,5 which indicates thatthe users found little need of the application and did not try very hard in completing it. Ithink this is somewhat due to the fact that a lot of the test users were fairly experienced pro-grammers already and did not find the application very educational since they knew mostthings before using it. Another thing that points to this is the distinctively higher score onvalue/usefulness of 4,9 which indicates that the testers saw value and potential in the appli-cation, just not for themselves.

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6.2. Method

I deem the evaluation results to be decent overall considering the circumstances but thereis room for improvement and the project would really need a couple of additional iterationsto become a viable educational tool for the public. I received a number of comments from testusers in addition to their Intrinsic Motivation Inventory scores which pointed out a couple ofsmaller practical errors in usability and durability. Many of these would have been prioritizedto be fixed before an actual public release of the website. The low score of effort/importanceand interest/enjoyment should also be prioritized to improve, one way of doing this couldbe to make the levels more diverse by adding new types of tasks. More diversity and changecould lead to a more enjoyable experience and making the user put in more effort to completethe tasks. This would have to be a careful balancing act since it could lead to more frustrationif the user is confused by all the new things, lowering the perceived competence.

A possible future addition to the website could be adding some form of interaction withother users which would work towards fulfilling the psychological need of relatedness. Itcould be implemented as a form to compare results with others to add a more competitiveflavour to the application which probably would be enjoyed by some users. This did notfit into my scope and would have made it even harder to fairly test with users being onlinesimultaneously but would be a very interesting feature to investigate.

6.2 Method

My design and development process was heavily based on the design methods of Deterd-ing [8], the method discussion will therefor focus on two topics, discussing the method ofDeterding in general and discussing my process in particular.

The general design method covered the entire process from start to finished product,basing steps and techniques in well established theories and design practices. It felt veryrigid and well thought through, containing important steps like continuous prototyping anduser testing which made my application progressively better each iteration. The idea of themethod is to include practices from game design in the entire process which is necessary toachieve the desired features of natural skill based challenges inherent in the system. This ideais mentioned but Deterding is vague in describing when and how some of these practises likeskill atoms and somewhat design lenses should be used. The Lens of Intrinsic Skill Atoms issupposed to be at the center of the process but lack a clear spot in the method and is describedto simply be in the back of the designers head at all times, this is fairly confusing and it putsa lot of responsibility on the people involved in the project. The iterative process completelylacks any game design elements in the steps which made me make my own version of thesesteps to better incorporate gameful aspects. The entire method has the ambition of alwaysbeing gameful in it’s nature but it is not clear enough to be so for designers less experiencedin gameful design as it is easy to fall back in old ways of thinking when the design steps arevague in how they should be made gameful. Deterding gives a couple of example of suc-cessful design processes with people new to game design practices but explains that he waspresent himself as an experienced mentor in gameful design. I suspect that this is a very im-portant factor since it lets him help the team if they derail and guide them in a good directionin terms of gameful design.

This particular study had limited resources in one single designer and developer and aset time limit. This in combination with the low amount of test users prevents it’s conclusionto apply on a wider range of situations. Only one method is tested and to achieve highervalidity and general conclusions in the subject further studies with a wider approach arerequired. Given the limitations and approach of this study there are some particular problemsthat needs discussion.

Finding suitable test users was a constant problem in the process given the size and natureof the application, the application is meant for voluntary usage and requires some time andeffort to process the concepts. This led to a high percentage of the test users not belonging

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6.3. The work in a wider context

to the target audience of non-programmers, the amount of programming experience varieda lot among test users. This made it hard to focus the application for the target audienceas the playtesting feedback often was directed towards aspects more noticed and prioritisedby experienced programmers. This feedback was sometimes very useful as experienced pro-grammers have broader knowledge of the area and can notice problems that a novice mightnot understand but it made it hard to adopt the task difficulties and helpful tools given to theuser.

I acted as the sole designer and developer in this study which limited the quality andquantity of the final application. The main focus of the application was to accentuate thegameful design elements and methods which made durability, security and usability comein second hand. The application become a prototype that was not fully tested and optimisedwhich resulted in a system containing some faults that could hinder the test users in theirplaythrough and impair the user experience.

There was a discrepancy in project scope and limitations, the initial design process aimedhigher than was possible to realise in development. The ideas generated in the initial brain-storming stages did not fully take into account what was feasible to develop given time lim-itations, resources and testing possibilities, this led to a lot of good ideas being generatedthat never got realised. The storyboard was not sufficient enough in describing exactly howdifferent features should have been incorporated in the application and what informationshould be included. I did not fully decide which particular concepts and techniques shouldbe brought up in the application which made it unclear how big it would become. This madethe iterative process very important in finding out what actually worked well and how to putit together given the situation.

6.3 The work in a wider context

Using game inspired design is a trend that has become increasingly more popular in businessand education. This does not mean that it is suitable for every situation and it is importantto analyse how and why it should be used in each implementation. One of the core elementsof games is voluntary participation [24] [36] which plays an important part in the autonomydesired in self-determination theory [31]. Autonomy is a vital building block of gamefuldesign and it is important to acknowledge this, using game elements in education can be agood tool but it is important not to force the concept in situations where it is not desired anduphold voluntary participation for the motivational aspect. Forcing a educational game intoa curriculum may risk alienating those who do not like the gameful experience.

Games are notorious for engaging users and keep them playing to the extent that gameaddiction may occur making the player neglect the reality outside of the game. Chou andTing argues that flow experiences in applications plays a key part in consumer addiction [4],something that is desired in motivating games and gameful design [8] [14]. Since gamescan become so extremely engaging that they cause addiction one must pose the question if asystem based in game design can do the same. Addiction can be harmful in many ways andpurposely creating a system cuasing addiction would arguably be viewed upon as morallygray.

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7 Conclusion

This study have examined how a learning application can be designed using methods basedin game design and interaction design to spark interest and motivation in users and havefound indications of its capacity. The methods used to develop the gameful application inthe study deemed powerful in offering useful design tools like design lenses and skill atomsbut put a lot of responsibility on the designers in finding the appropriate situations of whento use them. The process was flexible in dealing with problems that arose, time limits andchanging circumstances thanks to the iterative process.

The study shows that a system teaching programming can be developed reasonably wellby taking basic concepts and deliver them in a challenging manner accompanied with someelementary information and instruction. Pedagogy was not the main focus of the develop-ment process but the produced application was appreciated in aspect of competence devel-opment and confidence in the area among its users as it was inspired by systems with similarpurpose.

The results of the study can be used as indications on how gameful design methods canbe used but the insecurities of test result coming from the variety of test users and lack of testsupervision makes it difficult to verify the validity of the results and generalize them to largerproportions. The study indicates the usages of similar design processes but says little aboutits effectiveness in larger projects with more than one person involved or already existingsystems. Future research is needed to draw conclusions of these methods on a wider rangeof systems and projects.

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