How Gamified Are Sustainable Food Apps? Applying the Gameful Design Heuristics to Evaluate Sustainable Food Apps

Abstract

A large number of mobile apps support the sustainable use of food. These apps often use playful elements to enhance the user experience and promote their long-term use. However, we know little about which conceptual aspects of gamification and which gamified elements are actually used in the context of sustainable food apps. Therefore, in this paper, we analyse 76 mobile apps from the Google Play Store found with the term 'sustainable food' of which we analyse 27 apps in detail using the Gameful Design Heuristics. Our analysis uncovers a low average heuristics score and an unbalanced usage of subheuristics and heuristic categories. Additionally, gamification is unevenly distributed among food themes and sustainability categories. This study's results contribute to the research on commercial gamified apps related to sustainability and food. Thus, this paper contributes to gamification design by identifying design opportunities that serve as interesting starting points for future work.