JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Digital platforms should be leveraged for psychological interventions for large audiences, in particular to reach out to young people. Yet, past research has identified a problem of low retention and lack of interest from young people, and points to unsatisfying user experiences and lack of interactivity as primary reasons. In a pursuit to overcome these problems, we have explored the development of a gaming-based positive psychology intervention (PPI) targeting unemployed young adults. Promoting growth mindset and challenge-seeking behaviors could be beneficial to this population, and potentially positively impact their labor market inclusion.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to explore engagement and end-user appeal, by investigating if and how an interactive gaming app could make a PPI-intervention more engaging and relevant to unemployed young adults.

Methods:

Researchers worked with designers, developers and end-users to design a game-based intervention, targeting unemployed young adults. The result was a science-fiction-like game. We collected end-user feedback and perceptions of different iterations of the game, in order to inform ongoing intervention/game development. Eighteen young adults with experience from unemployment took part in formative usability testing. Recordings from these sessions were subjected to thematic analysis.

Results:

As a tool to motivate and help young unemployed adults to engage in work or education, the idea of an interactive and digital game was regarded positively by all participants. Beyond this positive sentiment, three themes were identified that pinpoint what we consider to be key priorities for future gaming interventions for unemployed young adults: 1) Adaptation to user preferences (e.g. need for responding to user preferences); 2) Empathic player interaction (e.g. need for responsiveness to user inputs and a diverse set of interaction modes) and; 3) Sensemaking of experience and context (e.g. need for explicit presentation of game objectives and need for management of user expectations related to genre). We identified tensions between intervention principles and game-play, which needs to be balanced. Specifically, in game-based interventions, the game objectives, genre, concept and story should be aligned with the intent of the intervention. Importantly, a game design intervention should offer engaging interactions in line with the gaming genre, which may require rethinking of existing intervention content and formats. Furthermore, successful implementation of game-based interventions will require careful cost-benefit analysis of design choices, including assessments of development costs and benefits, for use-retention and intervention effectiveness.

Conclusions:

The study contributes insight into key user perceptions of game-based interventions for unemployed young adults. The contribution has implications for future game-like intervention-design for this purpose. Feedback from the end-users in usability testing sessions was vital to understand user preferences and needs, as well as to inform both ongoing and future intervention design and development.