App Design Made Easy: Locandy.Com Content Management System Is An Appropriate Programming System For Location-Based Gamification Apps To Design Citizen Science Projects In Zoology

Abstract

The main drive for users to participate in citizen science projects is the motivation to learn something new and to be part of the creation process to establish new knowledge. Location-based gamification is a modern strategy, which applies game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It utilizes a human’s natural tendency to participate in games and competitions. This brought us to the idea that scientist guided structured data acquisition for citizen science projects can be designed using an easy-to-use content management system (CMS). We evaluated existing products for the design of GPS (global positioning system) location-based adventure-like paths and evaluated the usability to teach life science, sports, health knowledge by generating appealing smartphone apps. We tested different web-based application design tools for structured data acquisition and user education and decided on Locandy.com, because of its main strengths over others: the possibility to use variables and the ability to encode more complex algorithms to support scientific projects. It was shown that even complex teaching matters were successfully presented using this CMS and location-based gamification in an outdoor environment proved to be an efficient teaching strategy. Furthermore, it was shown that the integration of nature has the capability to teach complex interdisciplinary knowledge connections and helps to design data acquisition apps even for non-coding scientists.