Understanding Grassroots Sports Gamification in the Wild

Abstract

While gamification is an often used tool in building interactive experiences for sports, little work has addressed systems designed by users for users and deeply embedded in the social setting of physical exercise. Consequently, a better understanding of sports gamification in the wild is needed to build systems that reflect the users' pre-existing social context. This paper presents a qualitative study of a gamification system, the Boar Board, designed by a sports coach to support users participating in regular exercises. Through surveys, interviews and observations over eight months, we built an understanding of the user adoption of the system and how the Boar Board supported the goals of the group. Based on this, we endeavour to understand the social aspects of the system, including trust, and posit a number of design considerations for future inquiry into gamification systems for sports.