Updated: Vehicular Applications and Gamification Papers

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Rod McCall

Here is a list of the main papers from this website that explore using gamification to reduce traffic congestion. The work is drawn from research in how to apply vehicular networking technology to reduce traffic congestion. The first paper explores legal and ethical issues, the second explores the use of gamification to asses game design issues, while the third looks at early ideas to use gamification to reduce traffic congestion. The fourth paper explores a simulator that will be used in the I-GEAR project. Our intention is really to bring together gamification with in-car applications while also exploring novel user interface techniques.

Pervasive gaming as a potential solution to traffic congestion: new challenges regarding ethics, privacy and trust. V, Koenig, F. Boehm, and R. McCall. At Workshop on Exploring Ethics, Privacy and Trust in Serious Gaming held at The International Conference on Entertainment Computing 2012, Bremen, Germany.
Reducing Congestion Through Pervasive Gaming. McCall, R., Kracheel, M., and V. Koenig. Workshop on The Car as An Arena for Gaming. MobileHCI 2012, San Francisco (Best Paper Award)
Gaming Concepts and Incentives to Change Driver Behaviour. McCall, R., & Koenig, V. (2012) The 11th Annual Mediterranean Ad Hoc Networking Workshop (Med-Hoc-Net) (pp. 146–151). IEEE. doi:10.1109/MedHocNet.2012.6257115(PDF Presentation)
Towards a Simple City Driving Simulator Based on Speed Dreams and OSM. Avanesov, T., Louveton, N., McCall, R., Koenig, V., and M. Kracheel. Automotive UI, Portsmouth USA. (Towards a Simple Driving Simulator)(Driving Simulator Poster)
Gamification as a Methodology: A Multi-Part Development Process at a CHI 2013 workshop.
Using Gamification and Metaphor to Design a Mobility Platform for Commuters

Paper: Reducing Traffic Congestion Through Pervasive Gaming

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Rod McCall

Last year we presented a short position paper at the “Workshop on the Car as An Arena for Gaming” which was held during MobileHCI 2012. It was chosen as the best paper from the workshop and we have subsequently published a full version outlining the results from the study featured here and from MobileHCI itself in the International Journal of Mobile Human-Computer Interaction (to appear).

Abstract: In this paper we provide an overview of the I-GEAR (incentives and gaming environments for automobile routing) project that is intended to reduce traffic congestion in Luxembourg through the use of persuasive gaming. In order to illustrate some of the issues involved we also present an outline concept of a live game in which we propose to encourage the workshop participants to take part. If a sufficient number of workshop participants take part, this real life game could even be used as a small scale study within the project.

File: Reducing Congestion Through Pervasive Gaming

The journal paper will be available online soon (we have just received the proof to check over).

Citation: McCall, R., Kracheel, M., and V. Koenig. Reducing Traffic Congestion Through Pervasive Gaming. Position Paper from the Workshop on The Car As an Arena for Gaming at MobileHCI 2012. San Francisco, USA.

Paper: Using Presence to Evaluate a Location-Aware Augmented Reality Game

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Rod McCall

Rod McCall, Richard Wetzel, Johannes Löschner and Anne-Kathrin Braun

Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (2011) 15:25–35, Springer.

Abstract: Location-aware augmented reality games provide players with a rich and potentially unlimited range of interaction possibilities. In this paper, a study is described which uses a number of measurement techniques including questionnaires, direct observation, semi-structured interviews and video analysis to measure player’s sense of presence. The paper points to the importance of the availability of actions within augmented reality games and how this shapes their sense of presence. The findings indicate that such an approach to measuring presence can provide valuable information on the structure of augmented reality location-aware games.

Paper PDF: Using presence to evaluate an augmented reality location aware game

Paper: Re-creating the Botanics: towards a sense of place in virtual environments

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Rod McCall

The paper below disappeared from my archive until recently, however here it is again and hopefully it will be of interest.

Authors: Susan Turner, Phil Turner, Fiona Carroll, Shaleph O’Neill, David Benyon, Rod McCall, Michael Smyth

Presented at: Environmental Psychology in the UK Conference, 2003

Abstract: The EC funded project BENOGO seeks to re-create real places using photo-realistic immersive virtual reality technology and in so doing investigates the nature ofpresence and sense of place in such environments. We discuss the first stages in ourwork investigating how far a sense of place can be created in a virtual environmen tand benchmarked against the real world. This paper reports early studies which investigated sense of place in a real-world location – a glasshouse in a botanical garden – and the first in a series of planned experiments with its virtual equivalent. The results provide preliminary indications of which elements of sense of place

manage to penetrate the considerable constraints of the current virtual environment
and how the virtual experience might be redesigned in future. We also discuss
techniques for investigating sense of place in this context and briefly describe the next
steps in the work.

PDF: Re-creating the Botanics: towards a sense of place in virtual environments

Paper: New challenges regarding ethics, privacy and trust

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Rod McCall

Pervasive gaming as a potential solution to traffic congestion: new challenges regarding ethics, privacy and trust (PDF)

Koenig, Boehm, McCall

We recently presented the above paper at a workshop on Ethics, Privacy and Trust in Serious Gaming at the International Conference on Entertainment Computing 2012 in Bremen. It also appeared in the full conference proceedings.

Abstract: The following paper presents a review of the ethical, privacy and trust aspects relating to pervasive gaming in particular within the domain of traffic congestion. The paper deals explicitly with the challenges involved that fall between the gaps standard ethical practice and scientific research when studies comprise of those in the lab (where collection and use is heavily controlled) and those which take place in the wild where there is the requirement to share data possibly with external parties. Also where the nature of such work is at the borders of the concept of traditional study and a commercial running prototype.

Paper: Form and Content in Augmented Reality Gaming

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Rod McCall

At the end of 2009 as the IPCity project drew to a close we completed our final study of the TimeWarp Cologne game (please click on the link to find out more information and see the citation from Blum et al below). The study consisted of sixty participants and we identified six key gaming elements, relating to environment, interaction and characters that were in turn spread across physical and mental properties (see the paper form more information). As a result we developed a set of guidelines based around these asepects and the form and content issues associated with designing augmented reality games. This form and content split was derived from the work by Lombard and Ditton (see citation below) on virtual reality environments. Anyway for those who are interested, here is a quick summary of the guidelines that were derived. Please again check out the full paper for all the details.

Encourage players to explore virtual elements
Include short but intensive physical tasks
Allow virtual characters to become meaningful in the real world
Tap into existing emotions of players
Confront players with meaningful decisions
Do not focus on visual realism

My thanks again go to the other members of the TimeWarp team at Fraunhofer FIT.

The final TimeWarp: Using Form and Content to Support Player Experience and Presence when Designing Location-Aware Mobile Augmented Reality Games. Blum, L., Wetzel, R., McCall, R., and L. Oppermann. DIS 2012, Newcastle UK

Lombard, M., Ditton, T., At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 1997. 3(2).

Paper: Gaming Concepts and Incentives to Change Driver Behaviour

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Rod McCall

For those interested on using gamification to change commuter mobility behaviour check out our paper Gaming Concepts and Incentives to Change Driver Behaviour which is available for download you can also find the presentation online as well. This paper is from the I-GEAR project which started in 2012.

Title: Gaming Concepts and Incentives to Change Driver Behaviour

Authors: R McCall and V Koenig

Abstract— In this paper we present a novel concept that deals specifically with changing driver behaviour in order to reduce traffic congestion. The project I-GEAR (incentives and gaming environments for automobile routing) aims to understand the motivations that drivers have while undertaking the daily commute and then to provide them with a range of incentives to change their behaviour. A key focus within the project is on ways in which the
problem could potentially be solved without recourse to an expensive infrastructure project. Our solution to this problem was to move the problem of traffic management onto everyday mobile devices. In the following paper we outline the background to the
problem, concepts relating to pervasive gaming, existing explorations of incentives and gaming approaches as well as our basic concept and project methodology.

Rod McCall

In-car systems, games and human-computer interaction

Category Archives: Papers