Rcis 2016 conference

1. Engineering Software-based Motivation:
a Persona-based Approach
Alimohammad Shahri1, Mahmood Hosseini1, Malik Almaliki2,
Keith Phalp1, Jacqui Taylor1, Raian Ali1
1. Bournemouth University
2. Taibah University

2. What is Motivation?
• Motivation is the “psychological
processes that cause the
arousal, direction, and
persistence of behaviour”
• People need motives to have
motivation
• A motive is the substance that
can increase the will of a person
to perform a particular
behaviour
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3. What is Software-based Motivation
• The use of software in order to
increase motivation and
engagement in the users by mainly
giving virtual goods
• Examples are:
• Persuasive Technology
• Serious Games
• Gamification
3

4. Software-based Motivation in Action
4
• ILO report “We found out that 47.7 per cent of Filipino BPO
workers surveyed are suffering from insomnia while 54 per
cent are suffering from fatigue”
• Carlos Dominguez, senior vice president at Cisco Systems:
• Call centres are very stressing... Angry and demanding
customers
• We reward by measuring the anger at the beginning and
the end
• The bigger the delta, the more points the agents gets
• Agents will be wishing for angry customers
• We can also reward them it by letting the agents know
how they are doing against their peers
A call centre personnel presses her hand to
her forehead at an online brokerage company
in Tokyo October 23, 2008.
CREDIT: REUTERS/YURIKO NAKAO
HTTP://WWW.REUTERS.COM/ARTICLE/2009/04/27/US-
STRESS-DEPRESSION-IDUSTRE53Q5IA20090427
HTTP://WWW.INTERAKSYON.COM/INFOTECH/IN-STRESS-
FILLED-BPO-WORLD-GAMIFICATION-COULD-OFFER-RELIEF

5. Software-based Motivation VS.
Classical Motivation Methods
• SbM uses mostly the same elements as
classical motivational methods
• But, the use of software can:
• Increase the accuracy and granularity of the
captured data
• Increase the frequency of capturing data higher
• Increate the the frequency of using captured data
• Etc…
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6. Problems of Software-based Motivation
• There are several successful instances of SbM in
the literature
• It can help businesses to increase engagement
and productivity
• It can make employees crave for more tasks to
earn more points
• However,
• An ad-hoc design of SbM may fail to achieve these
• It can also have adverse side effects
• It can create tension amongst employees
• It can put social pressure on employees
• Employees may feel that they are being watched all
the time
• It may force people to compete with each other
• It can create clusters of people
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7. Users and Software-based Motivation
• Motivation and in particular, SbM
rely on the perception of the users
• If it is aligned with what they like, it
can be successful
• If it is against what users prefer, it
may fail to achieve business goals
• Or put their social and mental
wellbeing in danger
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8. Solution?
• We propose the use of personas in order to align the
design of SbM to its users
• Personas are fictional characters that can describe
different types of users and their requirements
• Personas shift the focus of design towards the end-
users of the software system and their requirements
• Personas model users of the system and point out
their important characteristics, goals, and
requirements
• Personas are normally assigned names, age, gender,
photos, and jobs to give them life.
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http://www.mathiaskaestel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Opalwave_personas.jpg
A sample persona of a commuter in Sydney

9. Study Design
• We have used empirical studies
• Expert study
• Interviews with 6 experts
• Questionnaire with 40 experts
• User study
• Interviews with 12 managers and employees
• Interviews with 10 employees
• Survey involving 10 psychologists
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10. Study Design
Exploration in
the field
• 6 interviews with
experts in the
field
• Almost 4 hours of
semi-structured
interviews
• Content analysis
Confirmation
and
Enhancement
• 40 experts in the
field participated
in an open ended
survey with 77
questions
• Content analysis
on the comments
provided by the
experts
• Descriptive
statistics
Clarification
• 12 semi-
structured
interviews with 7
employees and 5
managers from
various
disciplines
• Almost 5 hours of
interviews
• Content analysis
Elicitation of
users
preferences
• 10 semi-
structured
interviews with
employees from
various
disciplines
• More than 6
hours of
interviews
• Segmentation
and creating
personas
Confirmation
• Survey with 10
psychologists
asking about
their opinion on
the created
personas
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11. Characteristics of the Participants in
Survey
Years of Experience Level of Practical Experience
Min 1 Expert 7 18%
Max 10 High 18 45%
Mean 3.12 Medium 14 35%
Median 3 Low 1 3%
Mode 3 None 0 0%
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12. Country and Field of Study for the
Participants in Survey
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Participants per Country Participants per Area of Expertise
UK 11 Switzerland 2 Education 11 Exertion Interfaces 1
USA 6 China 1 Psychology 7 General 1
Netherlands 6 Italy 1 Enterprise 4 HCI 1
France 3 Japan 1 Tourism 4 Marketing 1
Germany 3 Taiwan 1 Linguistics 3 Modelling and Theory 1
Portugal 2 Norway 1 Game Design 2 Sociology 1
Spain 2 Software
Ergonomics
2 Software Engineering 1

13. Result
• The result of our study shows that five aspects of software-based
motivation can influence how users perceive it
• Collaboration Nature of the Users
• Incentives
• Privacy
• Performance and Feedback
• Goal Setting
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14. Result-Persona Constituents
Persona
Constituents
Collaboration
Nature of Users
Collaborative
Competitive
Goal Setting
Control Over
Settings
Opt-out
Possibility
Privacy
Self Only
Same Department
Managers
Everyone
Performance
and Feedback
Frequency
Generation Type
Incentives
Quality Based
Availability
Value
Chance of Winning
Conditioning
Tailoring and Suggestion
Surveillance and Monitoring
Tunnelling and Reduction
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15. Result - Collaboration Nature of the
Users
• Each individual can have a different preference
• Users can be:
• Competition seekers
• Collaboration seekers
• Inner-group competition seekers
• …
• If a strategy against ones preferences is forced upon
them, the use of software-based motivation:
• May not be effective
• May demotivate
• May Put pressure and create tension
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16. Result-Incentives
• Incentives can be tangible (more holiday) and
intangible (Virtual Badges)
• There are several aspects that concern users:
• Relativity of the value of the incentive with the effort
needed
• The possibility of winning
• Relativity of the reward with the quality of their work
• Availability of the reward – some preferred to have the
element of surprise while some others wanted to know
exactly what the rewards are and how they can be
achieved
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17. Result-Privacy
• One main concern of the users is about their
privacy at work
• Software-based motivation can act as a very
detailed monitoring mechanism
• Users showed concerns regarding who can
access their information depending on the
context:
• Self-only
• Managers
• Peers in the same department
• Everyone
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18. Result-Performance and Feedback
• Software-based motivation is based on the
data it collects and the report it provides
• Regarding the performance and feedback
provided by the use of software-based
motivation, users had two concerns:
• Frequency of update
• For the performance
• And the report
• Generation type of
• Data
• And the report
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19. Result-Goal Setting
• One main use of software-based
motivation is goal setting
• It is the breaking down of bigger tasks
• Smaller tasks can benefit in two ways:
• Provide path for completion of big tasks
• Provide tracking and monitoring information
about the progress of the task
• Users seemed to care about:
• Control over the settings of sub-tasks
• Opting-out possibility
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20. Developed Personas
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21. Developed Personas
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22. Developed Personas
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23. Software-based Motivation for Mary
Mary
Progress bar
Privacy Relevant peers
Control over steps No
Opt-out possibility No
Frequency Real-time
Reward
Chance of Winning High
Value Lower
Points
Frequency Real-time
Quality based
No
(Pre-determined points)
Privacy Managers
Leader-board
FrequencyReal-time
Availability
Relevant peers/
Self-only
Badges
Availability
Full
(No hidden badges)
PrivacyRelevant peers
FrequencyReal-time
Feedback
FrequencyDaily or Weekly
Generation TypeHuman Generated
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24. Challenges
• Selecting a representative sample
• Eliciting preferences
• Developing personas
• Variations in personas’ preferences
• Evolution
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25. Conclusion
• We proposed a set of persona constituents that can shape the
preferences and and attitudes of possible users of software-based
motivation in a business environment.
• Software designers can use these constituents to develop personas to
meet the requirements, needs, and preferences of the actual users
with regards to software-based motivation to a large extent.
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26. Acknowledgements
This research is supported by an FP7 Marie Curie CIG grant
(The SOCIAD project)
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