Gamification: motivating users’ energy conservation behaviour

Abstract

The energy issues such as energy shortage, high energy price, environmental problems and so forth have long become the world concern. Previous research pointed that, energy issues are much related to human behaviour and subsequently can be improved through promotion of better energy use behaviour. Therefore, this paper intends to introduce a concept known as gamification, to motivate the engagement of the users in conserving energy through a fun and enjoyable environment. Gamification is defined as the use of game design elements in a non-game context to create a fun environment to promote particular behaviour. In game play environment, we can always see a common scenario of players tend to have high engagement and attachment to game playing. This is due to some elements in game context created the fun playing environment to the game players. So, gamification is a concept that intends to apply those elements that normally exist in game (which called game design elements) in the non-game context to create fun environment for promoting particular behaviour. Previously this concept has been proven effective in motivating the engagement of the users’ on particular behaviour. Thus researcher has carried out a preliminary review on previous relevant studies to identify the relevant game design element for application of gamification in energy saving context. This paper will present the most common game design elements extracted from previous relevant studies and few examples will be provided as a reference for application of gamification in promoting and motivating energy saving behaviour.