Short-term modification of sleep-wake habits by gamification: a user study

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Endüstriyel Tasarım Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2015

Öğrenci: AYŞE EZGİ İLHAN

Eş Danışman: HÜSEYİN HACIHABİBOĞLU, BAHAR ŞENER PEDGLEY

Özet:

Gamification is used as a tool to persuade and motivate people to achieve hard-to-perform tasks through the use of game mechanics. It can help to change people’s habits in a positive direction, thus to get subjective well-being in the long run. Sleep-wake behaviors are important determinants of a day-to-day well-being. Management of sleep-wake habits of individuals is a potential area that can benefit from gamification. This study aimed to find out whether it was possible to modify sleep-wake habits using gamification. To that purpose, a gamified alarm clock app, Sleepy Bird, was designed and tested in a user study with 13 number of participants using gamified and 13 number of participants using non-gamified versions for two weeks. The results indicates that the participants of the gamified version were more motivated to start the day at required times than the participants of the non-gamified version. The participants of gamified version also made modifications to their sleep-wake habits becoming closer to optimum values. They also gained an initial awareness on sleep-wake and showed tendency to change behaviors in the long term.