Internet-of-Gamification: A Review of Literature on IoT-enabled Gamification for User Engagement

Abstract

Engagement is a common goal pursued by most social and technical systems, because of its widely acknowledged effects on enhancing user acceptance and performance. Previous research has shown that a system’s ability to engage users involves two known aspects: the technology foundation that determines the interactive paths for engaging users and the design methodology that determines the atop user experience to be conveyed through those paths. In recent years, an emerging and promising engagement approach that integrates both an advanced technology stack and novel design methodology, i.e. IoT-enabled Gamification (IeG), has attracted wide interest from both public and private sectors. This article aims to conduct a systematic review to answer some fundamental questions. 75 papers were reviewed under a 3-axis analysis framework of user engagement, the majority of which indicated that IeG is linked to increased engagement in a variety of application domains, stages, and population scales.