Month: May 2024

About Month: May 2024

Subscribe Feeds

News: Like to run or running for likes? How the gamification of fitness apps motivates movement

Posted on by Susie

Recently I got to speak to Will Venn about the use of gamification, or the use of game-like elements in spaces other than games to engage people in activities such as fitness. Alongside some other specialists in areas such as health, I got to talk to Will about the difference between game design and gamification.

I got to talk about the very cool Zombies, Run! game, and how it, and Pokemon Go! Addressed the Covid pandemic by adapting their game design to align with lockdown requirements. I also got to speak about the way in which engaging players through a storyline or a narrative can help modify an individual’s perception of physical activity – actually making our brains feel as though the exercise doesn’t involve as much exertion!

You can read the article here: https://www.unisa.edu.au/connect/enterprise-magazine/articles/2024/like-to-run-or-running-for-likes-how-the-gamification-of-fitness-apps-motivates-movement/

Article: Using Radical Co-Design to Create and Develop a Technology-Based Solution to Improve Post-Release Outcomes for Formerly Incarcerated Women: LindaBot

Posted on by Susie

This month, my colleague Michele and I were published in the International Journal of Communication, where we wrote an article about the importance of “Radical Co-Design” in creating the LindaBot Chatbot, designed to provide access to information to support formerly incarcerated women.

Whilst many projects involve co-design at some point, in this article we call for a new type of co-design called radical co-design, where formerly incarcerated women have ownership of the final product, and are involved in all stages of the creation of the product – including the ideation, design and development.

Here is the abstract for the article:
Most women exiting prison face profound disadvantages and are likely to struggle with poor mental and physical health. Rarely are women furnished with the resources needed to flourish post-release, and seemingly simple-sounding tasks like getting formal identification are quite complicated. The contributions of lived experience to human service delivery and research are incredibly valuable, yet the ability to contribute meaningfully to interventions is rarely afforded to formerly incarcerated women. Our project seeks to address this gap through the co-design of a chatbot, called LindaBot. In this article, we discuss the method and methodology we used when working with formerly incarcerated women to ideate, design, develop, and test a technology-based solution to support their transition out of prison.

This article is open access and you can read it here: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21208