1. Of Natures and Gamers:
Lessons from developing a Geocaching
game for Citizen Science
Anne Bowser*, Derek Hansen+, Matthew Reid+,
Jocelyn Raphael+, Ryan Gamett+, Yurong He*,
Dana Rotman*, Carol Boston* & Jennifer Preece*
*University of Maryland
+Brigham Young University
17. Method: Co-design Floracaching
Activity
(difficulty)
Description Sample
motivation
Budding
Scientist
★
Report whether a
Floracache is flowering
Citizen Science
Friendly
Floracacher
★
Check into a Floracache
with a friend
Social
Tour Guide
★★
Make a plant tour Social, Explore
Validator
★★★★
Validate that a first find
was correctly identified
Plant
Identification
18. Method: Co-design Floracaching
Surveys + focus groups
“Please rank the following activities in order from
most to least interesting”
“What would motivate you to participate in
Floracaching or a similar activity?”
23. Perceptions of Gamification
“Any kind of competition, with my friends or with a
larger community, perhaps with a prize or some sort
of recognition.”
- Gamer, survey
24. Perceptions of Gamification
“It could be a long term game, like 2 groups of
people over the course of 2 months, trying to
compete for I don't know, points or whatever.”
- Gamer, focus group
25. Perceptions of Gamification
“I did not want to compare myself to others, I want
to learn for myself and had no use for this activity.”
- Nature, survey
26. Perceptions of Gamification
"I think you could motivate people to do it, but it
wouldn't be a game. It would be people who were
seriously interested, who were willing to adopt an area,
like you adopt a highway.”
- Nature, focus group
28. Guidance v. Autonomy
”With Geocaching it’s cool, and it’s fun, but it’s like
‘what’s the point’… whereas with this, if you’re
contributing to science…”
- Gamer, focus group
29. Guidance v. Autonomy
I think one thing that would have helped … if I had
been assigned a specific task. Instead of saying,
‘hey, go out and look at what you like and maybe
you'll find something,’ but if I had been given a
specific assignment saying ‘you need to complete
this tour and you need to create a tour. Then you
report back on how those specific things went.’
- Gamer, focus group
30. Guidance v. Autonomy
”I actually enjoyed all the activities. I would have
done all of them if there had been time.”
- Nature, survey
31. Guidance v. Autonomy
"Something that I think would be very valuable is -
but this is time related- is seeing if plants come
back the next year, and when they bloom and when
you see them start to develop.”
- Nature, survey
33. Integration v. Enrichment
”My wife and I struggle to grow a garden. I mean I
wouldn’t want to be responsible for capturing that
data unless I had a specific purpose for it. So if it
was something having to do with my kids, teaching
them how to collect data and how to do research it
would be awesome. But if it’s just my wife and I it’s
going to die and you’re not going to get your data.”
- Gamer, focus group
34. Guidance v. Autonomy
”I’m not going to drive an hour just to see if some
plant bloomed.”
- Gamer, focus group
35. Integration v. Enrichment
“If the app could run in the background with very
limited battery usage, and notify me if I was within
a certain distance of a specific plant.”
- Gamer, survey
37. Integration v. Enrichment
”None of my other friends know anything about
plants so it would be cool to get them involved.
And, like, make them want to... also go out.”
- Nature, focus group
38. 1. Gamification & Citizen science
for both groups
2. Guidance & Integration for
gamer group
3. Autonomy & Enrichment for
nature group
Implications for designing citizen
science apps
