Gamification design for enhancing user experience of rail travellers

Abstract

Gamification is to add game-like elements, such as points and levels, into the non-gaming context to enhance the user's engagement and motivation. It is a trending topic in the tourism industry. This thesis adds the gamification design to the Rail Planner app of Eurail to enhance the rail travellers’ user experience. Concrete outputs are initial UX research, gamification app design and usability testing results. The gamification design for the app was created based on the user research results and it can be divided into three parts, including ‘record the journey’, ‘interactive quiz for learning language and culture of the travelling destination’ and ‘reward system’. A usability test was conducted to find out the design problems and users’ attitude towards the gamification design. According to the test results, gamification design can enhance users’ engagement and motivate them to collect points and level-up to unlock more benefits, if the rules of the gamification are easy to understand and benefits are attractive enough. The thesis provides an example for adding gamification design to the non-game app to enhance the rail travellers’ engagement.