Pure Gamification: An Energy Case

This paper investigates how a personalized gamified energy-saving application can be designed for customers of a Dutch green energy supplier, prompted by legislation requiring Dutch energy suppliers to encourage customer energy savings since 2017. The authors adapt the design method of Knutas et al. by removing its machine-learning components and adding a final evaluation phase, then pursue an iterative, human-centred design process built around the Gamification User Types Hexad framework. The central aim is to test whether customization by users can serve as a practical alternative to machine-learning-driven personalization.

The design process drew on interviews with nine customers, two focus groups of four and six participants, stakeholder feedback, and a final evaluation of an interactive prototype with fifteen customers, five for each of the three dominant user types: achievers, free spirits, and philanthropists. The resulting design comprises a customizable dashboard offering interchangeable gamified elements such as challenges, rankings, badges, and metaphors, alongside an energy editor that lets users model their household and observe the effects of changes on consumption. Clicking behaviour and choice patterns in the final evaluation broadly matched the motivational expectations for each user type, although some participants selected designs associated with other types.

The authors conclude that designing gamified elements around each user type's dominant motivation is an effective personalization strategy, an alternative to the more common approach of assigning different element sets to each type. They also find that adapting designs to a household's actual situation and existing energy behaviour strengthens perceived personalization. The findings are limited by the small, single-supplier sample and by the fact that participants interacted only with prototypes rather than with long-term use.