Effective Implementation of Feedback in Gamification: Verifying the utility of feedback to induce behavior

In healthcare, promoting behavior change is important for improving health and supporting the treatment process. Gamification has gained attention as an effective means of achieving this aim. As motivation is important for promoting behavior change, it is key to ensure that participants are given opportunities in ways that make them feel in control. Therefore, this study investigated how to effectively implement “feedback,” which is an element of gamification, as a means of providing these opportunities. The objective was to confirm whether desired behavior is promoted by allowing users to exercise choice and self-determination when receiving opportunities or chances to act. As part of this investigation, a lifelog app was distributed for measuring steps walked, and a randomized controlled trial was conducted to provide feedback to the users—None, Report-, Suggestion-, and Acceptance-type. Based on an analysis and evaluation of feedback utility from measuring the number of steps taken by the users according to the app’s user log, the average numbers of steps for each feedback type during the entire measurement period were 8020.8, 8094.0, 8118.4, and 8453.1, respectively. Nonparametric tests showed statistical differences; hence, we used the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. The results showed a statistically significant difference between the Acceptance group, which exercised choice and self-determination, and the None group. The study thus identified an effective feedback method for inducing desired behavior and argues that improving feedback utility contributes to successful gamification that encourages behavior change.