Let them play: experiences in the wild with a gamification and coaching system for young diabetes patients

Abstract

In this paper we describe a platform that integrates gaming and coaching for adolescent patients with type 1 diabetes and results from user evaluations of the platform. The purpose of the platform is to support patients in diabetes self-management through educational game playing, monitoring and motivational feedback, and to support patients' care givers. We describe the design of the platform referring to principles from health care, persuasive system design and game design. The virtual coach is a game guide that can also provide personalized feedback about the user's daily care related activities which have value for making progress in the game world. We report about user evaluations in the wild which revealed that some assumptions made about how users are connected to the platform were not satisfied in reality, resulting in less optimal user experiences. We discuss challenges with suggestions for further development of integrated pervasive coaching and gamification platforms.