Using gamification to inspire new citzen science volunteers

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Using gamification to inspire new citizen science 
volunteers 
Anne Bowser1, Derek Hansen2, Yurong He1, Carol Boston1, Matthew Reid3, Logan 
Gunnell2, Jennifer Preece1 
University of Maryland 
8082 Baltimore Avenue 
College Park, MD 20740 
abowser1@umd.edu 
Brigham Young University 
E Campus Drive 
Provo, UT 84604 
dlhansen@byu.edu
Pariveda Solutions 
2811 McKinney Ave. 
Dallas, TX 75204 
matthewreid007@gmail.com
ABSTRACT 
Gamifying citizen science campaigns has the potential to 
further engage existing volunteers, as well as to attract new 
contributors. By evaluating Biotracker, a gamified mobile 
application that gathers plant phenology data, we explored 
the feasibility of engaging a secondary group of 
Millennials, who are notorious technology enthusiasts, with 
a gamified citizen science app. We also explored the 
potential benefits that using an application might offer 
these users. Results suggest that gamification is key to 
attracting many Millennials, as are social motivations and, 
to a lesser extent, education. Potential benefits to these 
participants include an increased awareness of community 
and an increase in domain knowledge. 
Author Keywords 
Gamification, location-based games, citizen science, 
crowdsourcing, Biotracker, Project Budburst, Millennials 
ACM Classification Keywords 
K.8.0. General: Games 
INTRODUCTION 
Gamification is a powerful design tool with the potential to 
enhance user experience and engagement with non-game 
applications. While the canonical example of gamification 
may be the use of badges by service marketing teams [18], 
the motivational affordances of games are also utilized in 
non-corporate contexts such as education [6], community 
trading [14] and citizen sensing [7]. 
Citizen science is another promising context for 
gamification. Specifically, researchers have identified 
“rewards, such as online gaming badges and competitions” 
as a promising method for motivating and retaining 
volunteers [20]. Examples of extant projects that utilize 
gamification in citizen science are Tiger Nation [19], which 
tracks the movements of endangered tigers, and Happy 
Sort, which classifies images of species such as moths and 
sharks [24]. However, with those notable exceptions, 
serious games (i.e., stand-alone games with a primary 
purpose other than entertainment) such as Foldit 
(http://fold.it/portal/) or Zooniverse (www.zooniverse.org/) 
are far more prevalent than gamified apps in the citizen 
science domain. Since not all tasks lend themselves to the 
creation of full games, understanding how to effectively 
gamify citizen science apps is of great importance. 
This paper reports on our experiences evaluating 
Biotracker, a gamified mobile application for citizen 
science. Biotracker was developed to feed plant phenology 
data to the Project Budburst database (www.budburst.org); 
as such, our primary user group is citizen scientists who 
already contribute data to Project Budburst or similar 
campaigns. By gamifying the Biotracker app, we hope to 
engage this user group more fully, as well as attract a 
secondary group of Millennials – the focus of this paper. 
Engaging users who are not currently active citizen 
scientists has several potential benefits. Additional data can 
be collected for scientists. Volunteers may reap benefits 
including an increased knowledge of the scientific method 
and heightened community involvement [4]. Some critics 
argue that gamification is a simple marketing tool that 
manipulates users without their knowledge [2], so 
establishing that benefits exist to the users of a gamified 
app is a key ethical consideration in the design and 
development of gamified mobile applications—especially 
when these users might not be motivated to use an 
application because of its content alone. 
With these considerations in mind, we evaluated an 
advanced prototype of the gamified Biotracker app with a 
group of 71 undergraduates from the Millennial generation. 
We address the following research questions: 
• Can a gamified citizen science app engage
technology enthusiasts from the millennial
generation?
• Which aspects of the gamified app would be most
motivating to those who are likely to use it?
• What potential benefits could this group receive
from use of the gamified app?
Our work suggests that gamifying a mobile app for citizen 
science does have the potential to engage Millennials. 
These users express social motivations such as socialization 
and community membership, motivations relating to 
personal benefit such as fun and education, and motivations 
relating to gamification such as competition and reward in 
the form of badges earned. Potential sources of value for 
these users include an increased awareness of community 
and a growing knowledge of topics such as plant biology. 
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BACKGROUND 
Gamification 
One common definition of gamification is “the use of 
elements of game design in non-game contexts” [10]. 
While this succinctly describes the method that 
gamification deploys, other researchers choose to 
emphasize the experience that gamification gives rise to. 
Thus, a second definition considers gamification “a process 
of enhancing a service with affordances for gameful 
experiences in order to support user’s overall value 
creation” [15]. Context is a third key to understanding 
gamification: a user is motivated by a gamified system only 
when gamification makes salient a user’s real, intrinsic 
motivational needs [9]. Therefore, designers of gamified 
apps should understand both the motivational affordances 
of games and the domain of interest (e.g., citizen science). 
Researchers have identified a number of motivations that 
drive the users of gamified apps. People use gamified apps 
because they are fun or relate to a personal interest [13]. 
They use these apps to socialize, whether social activities 
are casual and temporary, contribute to longer-term 
relationships, or evoke community membership [13, 16, 
27]. Users of gamified apps are also motivated by the 
opportunity to discover new things [27], to be part of a 
meaningful story [13], to compete with others [27], and to 
achieve one’s personal best [13, 28]. 
Citizen Science 
Citizen science is a collaborative process in which 
volunteers work with professional scientists to study real- 
world problems [4]. Citizen science activities are often 
structured around campaigns, where volunteers gather and 
annotate a specific type of data. Some campaigns are 
bounded by a specific time or place. ReClam the Bay 
(www.reclamthebay.org) is seasonal and located around 
Barnegat Beach, New Jersey. Other campaigns, such as 
eBird (www.ebird.org), perpetually solicit data from citizen 
scientists in diverse geographic zones. 
Because citizen science facilitates efforts such as large-
scale data collection that would otherwise be impractical or 
impossible, its value to scientists is clear. Its value to 
volunteers is no less significant. Based on the Framework 
for Evaluating Impacts of Informal Science Education [12] 
used by NSF-funded projects, researchers [4] identify a 
number of benefits for citizen science volunteers. These 
include increased knowledge of scientific contentand 
processes; increased engagement (e.g., with the scientific 
community); skill development (e.g., study design); 
improved attitudes toward science; increased time spent 
outdoors, citizen action, and responsible environmental 
behavior; and other impacts. 
Motivations of citizen science volunteers are complex, and 
change over time [26]. They include fun or personal 
interest [21, 25, 26], the desire to learn more about a 
subject [25], and the thrill of discovery [25]. Citizen 
science volunteers appreciate the opportunity to be part of a 
community [25, 26], although motivations for socialization 
may exceed motivations for community recognition [21]. 
Volunteers exhibit altruistic motivations ranging from a 
general desire to help [25], a desire to contribute to science 
[21, 25], and a desire to help one’s community [26]. 
Table 1 summarizes the motivations of users of gamified 
apps and citizen science volunteers outlined in the prior 
sections. It is necessarily general and may not apply to 
specific scenarios (e.g., educational games; competitive 
citizen science activities), but it does illustrate that both 
groups share some motivations, while differing in others. 
Motivation Gamers Cit. Sci. Volunteers 
Fun (intrinsically rewarding) X X 
Personal interest X X 
Learning or education X 
Contributing to science X 
Contributing to public good X 
Community involvement X X 
General socialization X X 
Personal performance X 
Competition with peers X 
Table 1. Motivations of gamers and citizen scientists 
METHODS 
After describing the Biotracker app we explain the methods 
used for this study. Note that prior work evaluated an 
earlier prototype of Biotracker with different users [3]. 
The Biotracker app 
Biotracker is a gamified mobile application designed to 
gather plant phenology data for Project Budburst. Plant 
phenology data measures the timing of events, such as 
when a perennial begins to bud or when a tree’s leaves fall. 
It is valuable to scientists who study the dissemination of 
allergens and global climate change. Biotracker was 
developed with PLACE, an iterative co-design approach to 
Prototyping Location, Activities, and Collective Experience 
over time, as detailed elsewhere [3]. 
In Biotracker, the central artifact that users interact with is 
a floracache, or a plant (for example, a specific oak tree in 
front of a college library) designated as part of the game. 
Floracaches are mapped in the application so that any user 
can find them. Biotracker supports two main types of 
interaction: creating floracaches of new plants, and 
checking into floracaches that already exist. Users who 
create a floracache must visit, photograph, and identify a 
plant, a task that requires some plant expertise. In contrast, 
any Biotracker user with a location-enabled mobile device 
can “check in” to existing floracaches. Checking in 
involves three optional tasks. First, users check a box to 
indicate the plant’s current phenological state, such as “all 
leaves withered,” or “full flowering.” Second, users can 
comment on an aspect of the floracache. Third, users can 
photograph the floracache. 
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Several activities rely upon the two primitive types of 
interaction: creating caches and checking into them. 
Budding Scientist, one of the core activities, requires that 
users check into a floracache and answer plant phenology 
questions (e.g., is it blooming?). Invasive Patroller asks 
users to create a cache of an invasive species; Friendly 
Floracacher requires users to check in with another person. 
Biotracker is gamified primarily through the use of badges 
that are placed on the virtual profile pages of users (Figure 
1). Each badge is associated with a different activity. For 
example, users who complete the Budding Scientist activity 
earn the Budding Scientist badge. Floracaching also 
includes a leaderboard listing the ten players who have 
checked into the most caches at any given time. When a 
user hits the #1 spot on the leaderboard, he or she is 
automatically awarded a Leader of the Pack badge. In this 
way, players are rewarded for their general use of 
Biotracker and for completing specific activities. 
Participants 
Millennials, or Americans born after 1980, are 
characterized as “digital natives” [23] or “leading 
technology enthusiasts” who “embrace all things digital” 
[22]. Generally, millennials use technology more frequently 
than their elders (94% own a mobile phone, compared to a 
national average of 86%). They also use technology 
differently: while no more likely than older peers to use 
email, this group is twice as likely to play video games 
[22]. Finally, millennials have more positive attitudes 
towards technology: 74% believe it makes life easier, 
compared to a national average of 64%. Because of these 
differences—higher mobile phone use, greater attraction to 
video games, positive attitudes towards technology—we 
believe that this group may be open to using a gamified 
application for citizen science. This view is shared by other 
citizen science researchers who argue that games and 
technology can be used to appeal to “younger and more 
ethnically diverse participants” [20]. 
The 71 participants who evaluated Biotracker are 
Millennial college students at a large state university (all 
were between 18 and 24 years of age). These included 55 
men and 16 women who self-reported the following 
racial/ethnicity categories: African American (non-
Hispanic): 10, Asian/Pacific Islander: 25, Caucasian (non-
Hispanic): 35, Latino: 5, and Other: 1. Most were self-
declared engineering or computer science majors. 
The evaluation of the Biotracker app was the culminating 
activity of a five-week unit on citizen science. Our research 
team spent one class (1.5 hours) with the students each 
week. At the beginning of the unit students were surveyed 
about their experience with citizen science. Most were 
unfamiliar with the topic and none had participated in 
campaigns. The first four weeks of the unit introduced 
students to citizen science and gave them practice as 
participants. Therefore, by the time students evaluated the 
Biotracker app they were more familiar with citizen science 
than would otherwise be typical. 
Evaluation 
Prior to evaluating the Biotracker app, students were given 
information about downloading and installing the app and 
encouraged to bring their smartphones to class. Researchers 
prepared by setting up a large number of Floracaches in the 
vicinity of the classroom building. Once in class, students 
participated in a brief discussion about plant phenology and 
the various gamified features of the app before going 
outside for 30 minutes of free play with the application. 
Figure 1. User Profile Screen (left) and Badges (right) 
Data collection and analysis 
After using the Biotracker application, participants 
completed a 15-question online survey as a homework 
assignment graded as completed/ not completed. The 
survey began with open-ended questions such as “What 
makes [certain] activities appealing?” Participants also 
answered the questions, “How likely are you to use the 
Biotracker app in the future?” and “How likely are you to 
participate in other kinds of citizen science activities?” 
General motivations were assessed with the open-ended 
question, “What would motivate you to use the Biotracker 
application or participate in a similar activity?” To assess 
specific motivations, participants were given 11 statements 
and asked, “Please indicate how motivating you would find 
each reason for using the Biotracker app.” Nine of these 11 
statements correspond directly to the motivations presented 
in Table 1; for example, “fun” was assessed with the survey 
item “Using the Biotracker app is fun.” The remaining 2 
statements, “Earning badges is motivating” and 
“Completing activities is motivating” were designed to 
assess perceptionsof gamification. Participants also 
answered demographic questions and questions about their 
experience with citizen science and natural observations. 
Qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis, a 
method of searching across a dataset to find repeated 
patterns of meaning [5]. While similar to inductive 
techniques such as grounded theory, thematic analysis 
differs by allowing for a researcher’s existing theoretical or 
analytical interest in the data. Thematic analysis is a six-
step process where researchers familiarize themselves with 
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the data, generate initial codes, search for themes, review 
themes, define themes, and report themes. This iterative 
process allowed us to move from stage to state as needed. 
Quantitative analysis focused on the question about the 11 
motivators discussed earlier. Answers were given on a 5-
point Likert scale, with choices listed as “very motivating,” 
“somewhat motivating,” “neutral,” “somewhat 
demotivating,” and “very demotivating”. For many 
questions, the most extreme choices—“very motivating” 
and “very demotivating”—had a very small number of 
responses. To facilitate analysis, these answers were 
therefore collapsed into two categories: “very motivating” 
and “somewhat motivating” were grouped together as 
“motivating,” while “very demotivating” and “somewhat 
demotivating” were grouped together as “demotivating.” 
This process of collapsing or combining Likert scale 
categories is a common data transformation [1]. This 
transformation can be valuable when participants are 
hesitant to select extreme options, as with our data set. 
Table 2. Independent t-test results 
Our primary interest was to understand which motivations 
were salient for those who would potentially use the 
Biotracker app, as compared to those who would not. To 
assess this, we grouped participants into two categories: 
those who reported being somewhat or very likely to use 
the app in the future (n=10), and those who reported being 
somewhat or very unlikely to use the app in the future 
(n=37), removing data from those who were indifferent 
(n=24). A similar approach was used to evaluate different 
motivations for those willing to contribute to other citizen 
science projects (n=36) versus those who were not (n=15), 
ignoring neutral responses (n=20). Because responses to 
questions created ordinal data, Mann-Whitney U tests were 
used to identify significant differences [1]. 
FINDINGS 
Only 10 participants (14%) were “likely” or “very likely” 
to use the app in the future. 24 (34%) were undecided, and 
37 (52%) were “very unlikely” or “somewhat unlikely”. In 
contrast, 36 (51%) were “likely” or “very likely” to 
participate in other kinds of citizen science activities (20, or 
28%, were undecided; only 15, or 21%, were “very 
unlikely” or “somewhat unlikely”). We believe that the 
relatively small proportion of users who were “likely” or 
“very likely” to use the app in the future is indicative of 
problems with location-awareness on certain devices, and 
the use of unfamiliar vocabulary such as Latin names for 
plants. We explore this further in our discussion. 
Our remaining findings are grouped by the motivations 
presented in Table 1. The first seven motivations are 
discussed individually; the following four closely relate to 
one another and are discussed together. Table 2 
summarizes the quantitative results. 
Fun (intrinsically rewarding)
Participants who would use Biotracker (U= 146.5, p< .01) 
and participants who would contribute to other citizen 
science projects (U= 391.0, p< .01) both considered “fun” 
a significant motivation. Data from open-ended questions 
reveals three types of “fun”: creativity, exploration of a 
local environment, and relaxation. 
Noting creativity as a common thread across his favorite 
activities, one participant wrote, “They all involve being 
able to perform a concrete action or set of actions that 
create a physical result. It allows for the ability to create 
something as well as merely observing native flora.” 
Similarly, a user said that the Paparazzi activity (which 
asks a user to take the best photograph of a cherry tree) is 
fun because “It allows for creativity in photography. I’m 
not an expert photographer by any means, but I’d like to 
achieve having the best picture of a tree.” 
Participants also had fun exploring their local environment. 
“Locovore will teach us about something unique to our 
area”; “Why not appreciate native flora from your area?” 
Seasonality, a function of location, also comes into play: “I 
think Cherry Blossom Blitz is a great idea in April—it 
ensures the opportunity to go out and view a good Cherry 
tree blossoming during the appropriate season.” This was 
especially important for participants who already had a 
strong local identity—as one expressed, “I am native to 
Maryland so touring native species is something I would 
prefer because it is most relatable to myself.” 
Motivation Total (n=71) 
Would use 
Biotracker 
Would 
contribute to 
other projects 
Is fun 36 (51%) 
U= 146.5 U= 391.0 
p< 0.01 p< 0.01 
Supports my 
interest in plants 
26 
(27%) 
U= 287.5 U= 502.5 
p= 0.76 p= 0.12 
Helps me learn 
about plants and 
their environment 
41 
(58%) 
U=134.0 U= 501.5 
p< 0.01 p= 0.11 
Contributes 
valuable scientific 
data 
42 
(59%) 
U= 201.0 U= 460.0 
p= 0.07 p< 0.04 
Contributes to the 
public good 
45 
(63%) 
U= 234.0 U= 456.5 
p= 0.21 p< 0.04 
Can connect me to 
a community of 
similar people 
31 
(44%) 
U= 152.5 U= 536.0 
p< 0.01 p= 0.26 
Could be a fun 
social activity 
31 
(44%) 
U= 144.5 U= 472.5 
p< 0.01 p= 0.06 
Doing my best is 
motivating 
34 
(48%) 
U= 230.0 U= 556.5 
p= 0.19 p= 0.37 
Competing with 
my peers is 
motivating 
34 
(48%) 
U= 180.0 U= 462.5 
p< 0.04 p= 0.07 
Earning badges is 
motivating 
33 
(36%) 
U= 154.5 U= 542.0 
P< 0.01 p= 0.28 
Completing 
activities is 
motivating. 
44 
(62%) 
U= 202.0 U= 507.0 
p= 0.06 p= 0.12 
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Finally, participants would enjoy using the application “if it 
provided an experience for me that was [de-stressing] / 
refreshing, and I had something to gain. For myself, a gain 
would entail an enjoyable/relaxing interaction with 
nature.” Another participant would “just want to get out 
there and enjoy nature while I do things, not worry.” In 
some cases, engaging with a local environment can be 
relaxing in itself. “To me appreciating nature is a way to 
destress and taking the time to look and appreciate native 
Maryland trees is appealing. This is especially due to the 
fact that I’m a Marylander and lived in a rural area where 
trees were abundant and gave a sense of peace and home.” 
Personal interest 
Participants who would use the Biotracker app were not 
more motivated by an interest in plants (U= 287.5, p= 0.76) 
than those who would not use it. Some simply considered 
plants boring: “I would be pretty unmotivated to participate 
because the subject matter does not interest me to any real 
degree.” Others thought that the plants chosen as 
floracaches (reflecting the plants in the Project Budburst 
database) lacked novelty: “Maple trees are everywhere. 
That’s like getting excited every time you see a 
dandelion…you can’t hype up generic, boring trees.” Users 
would be motivated to use the app “if it related to activities 
that I find interesting.” For example, “if a similar activity 
was created that matched my interests, I would be more 
inclined to participate…instead of caching wildlife, an 
activity can be created to cache Maryland landmarks.” 
Learning or education 
Participants who reported that they were likely to use the 
Biotracker app (U= 134.0, p< .01) were motivated to learn 
about plants and their environments. Some were motivated 
by the general “educational potential of the application”; 
othersexpressed interest in certain plants (“I don’t know 
very much about Magnolias, so I’m curious about how 
different Magnolias vary.”). However, educational benefits 
were rarely the first thing a user mentioned and are likely to 
be a secondary motivation. One user, who noted that their 
primary motivation would be competition, later added, “it’s 
also nice to learn about the plants.” Similarly, after writing 
“I enjoy looking and enjoying nature especially the cherry 
blossoms,” a student added “I can also learn more about 
them by identifying them so I know what I’m appreciating.” 
The secondary role of education as a motivator may be due 
to the fact that most participants are not interested in plants 
enough to want to learn about them in the absence of other 
benefits: “I have some interest, but not enough motivation 
to go out with a field guide and start teaching myself.” 
Contributing to science 
As one participant writes, “I would be motivated if I was 
helping someone use these statistics for a project because it 
is going to a good cause. I would also be motivated to 
participate in a similar activity because it can help 
scientists very much.” Contributing to science was not a 
significant motivator for those who are likely to use the 
Biotracker app (U= 201.0, p= 0.07) compared to those who 
would not, though it may have been with a larger sample 
size. Some users recognized the value of the app to 
scientists, though that was not enough in itself to warrant 
their participation: “The only time I would use this 
particular app is if it were part of a competition. I am not 
particularly interested in plants, so while I understand that 
the app is very useful, and will certainly be helpful to 
scientists in the field, I would probably not use it.” Others 
may not have recognized the value of the app to scientists, 
since the contribution to science was not made explicit 
enough: “If there was an app that provided data to a 
worthwhile cause I would probably participate.” Indeed, 
this may explain why those who would contribute to other 
citizen science projects were more likely to express this 
motivation than those who would not (U= 460.0, p< 0.04). 
Contributing to public good 
Contributing to the public good was not a significant 
motivator for those who are likely to use the Biotracker app 
(U= 234.0, p= 0.24). Again, this may be because the app 
does not provide a clear “explanation of benefits to 
society;” as one participant wondered, “How much is the 
potential impact for society?” Those who did express a 
motivation to contribute to the public generally evoked a 
localized public such as other users of the Biotracker app 
(“Creating a new Floracache is appealing because then I 
will have contributed something that everyone else can 
use”) or other college campus residents. On the later point, 
one participant wrote, “Maple Marker interests me because 
it can help with the maintenance of the campus.” Another 
would be motivated “If a project can have a big impact on 
campus life.” Those who would contribute to other citizen 
science projects were more likely to express this motivation 
than those who would not (U=456.5, p<0.04). 
Community involvement 
Community involvement is a significant motivation for 
likely users of the Biotracker app (U= 152.5, p< .01). For 
some of these users, community involvement could spur 
individual engagement: “Seeing others around me use it 
would motivate me to join them and contribute;” “The app 
would probably have to be popular with my friends so we 
would all use it.” Other users would be motivated to use 
the app if could support existing community membership: 
“If the app became popular among my peers, I’d definitely 
use it to fit in with the crowed.” While the majority of our 
participants seem to consider their group of a friends a 
community, a few express the desire to interact with people 
of similar mindsets: “I’d love to spend time in the company 
of someone who I can relate to by appreciating nature. I 
think it’s rare to find friends nowadays who are a bit 
adventurous and are willing to get out there and appreciate 
nature, but I feel like I could establish a deeper connection 
with someone who shares that interest with me.” 
General Socialization 
Socialization – which designates social activity on a 
smaller scale than community involvement, or “interacting 
with other people”—is a powerful motivation for people 
Stratford, Ontario, Canada, October 2-4, 2013 Gamification 2013 | PROCEEDINGS
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more likely to use the Biotracker app (U= 144.5; p< .01). 
Specifically, users would be motivated to use the 
application “if I could make it a peer activity- use it to 
spend time with friends, or spend time with a romantic 
partner.” Socialization can also enhance other motivations, 
such as the fun of exploring nature: “I would like to be able 
to use this app socially, so on certain occasion, I could not 
only engage with nature for a benefit, but I could also 
interact with others for social interaction, which would be 
another benefit.” A similar user was motivated by “The 
opportunity to be with friends. The chance to get to explore 
nature and share the beauty with other people.” 
Gamification 
Four motivations related to gamification. “Doing my best is 
motivating” (U=230.0, p= 0.19) and “completing activities 
is motivating” (U= 202.0, p= 0.06) are not significant for 
participants who would use Biotracker app; “competing 
with my peers is motivating” (U= 180.0, p< .04) and 
“earning badges is motivating” (U= 154.5, p< .01) are. 
None of the four motives related to gamification were 
significant for users who would participate in other citizen 
science projects. These motivations are explored further in 
the qualitative analysis presented below. 
Responses to survey questions such as “What would 
motivate you to use the Biotracker app or participate in a 
similar activity?” confirm that gamification is a primary 
motivation for this user group. One explains: “I guess if 
this app was made into a game more than anything I would 
use it more.” Another echoes, “Something that would 
motivate me to use a similar app in the future would be the 
gamification characteristic that this one employed. It makes 
it much more fun and less tedious to participate in…citizen 
science.” In fact, many users advocated for more 
gamification: “If it was even more game-like that would be 
great, because I got bored with the app.” 
Regarding specific motivations, some participants found 
motivation in competition “between friends, competition 
amongst strangers.” As one wrote, “Introducing 
competition to citizen science applications can have a 
lasting impact on the overall effectiveness of the 
application. These are the types of things that pique the 
interest of the user.” An almost universal belief prevails 
among these users that “Everyone wants to be leader of the 
pack,” i.e., occupy the number one spot on the leaderboard: 
“Being the person with the most Floracaches is a goal to 
reach so it’s appealing because like any mobile game like 
system, there’s always a task to reach even if it takes a few 
times to get that tile/ award.” 
Others were motivated by the “Personal satisfaction of 
getting badges” and noted, “the badges are a nice touch, 
and I think they should be expanded for future users.” 
Users also wrote about the “satisfaction of completing 
activities,” although such comments were less frequent 
than assessments of badges or competition. 
The motivations related to gamification that were not 
significant included “doing my best” and “completing 
activities” (though the latter may be significant with a 
larger sample). In retrospect, we believe that this is due to 
our failure to include game elements such as quests that 
really challenge users to perform outside of peer 
competition. It may also be true that, due to the social way 
the app is used, peer competition is just more compelling. 
DISCUSSION 
Ourfindings suggest that the answer to our first research 
question, whether gamifying a mobile application for 
citizen science could engage an additional user group of 
Millennials, is a qualified affirmative. Survey results 
indicate that people who are likely to use the Biotracker 
application in the future are significantly more motivated 
by gamification in the form of “earning badges” and 
“competing with my peers” then those who are not likely to 
use the app. We also found support in our qualitative data 
from users who would “use the app if it were in a game 
format because that would interest me” and believe 
gamification “makes it much more fun and less tedious to 
participate in…citizen science” 
On the other hand, half of our participants reported that 
they were “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” to use 
the Biotracker app in the future. There were two main 
reasons why some students would not use the app. First, 
our prototype had some problems recognizing location on 
select mobile devices. As one frustrated user writes, “The 
application would be much better if location was 
accurate.” Users also disliked the use of scientific names 
for genus and species, and asked developers to “make it 
more friendly to people who have little knowledge of 
flora…I didn’t understand much of the Latin names.” 
These usability issues are relatively easy to resolve. It is 
also clear that participants will only use a gamified citizen 
science app if doing so is convenient: “If I could use an app 
in a way that did not interfere with my daily activities I 
would absolutely participate in citizen science projects. I 
don’t want to have to go out of my way to use the app.” A 
second participant similarly noted, “When choosing a 
citizen science activity to complete, I would most likely 
choose one that is interesting, but that is not too time 
consuming.” This issue is much harder to resolve. 
We draw two general conclusions from these combined 
results. First, while most Millennials may not embrace a 
gamified citizen science app, a significant portion may—
and they will likely engage with the application precisely 
because it is gamified. This claim is supported by 
quantitative data that shows our Millennials find earning 
badges and peer competition motivating, and by 
elaborations offered in response to open-ended survey 
questions. In contrast, users who were likely to participate 
in other citizen science projects expressed established 
motivations such as “contribute valuable scientific data” 
and “contribute to the public good.” Therefore, a new user 
group of Millennials who might not find the traditional 
motivations of citizen scientists inspiring may be willing to 
engage with a citizen science application if it is gamified. 
Stratford, Ontario, Canada, October 2-4, 2013 Gamification 2013 | PROCEEDINGS
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Second, because of their expectation that technology can 
and should make life easier [22], this user group may not be 
as patient with a gamified citizen science app as the citizen 
scientists who are already motivated to volunteer their data. 
Therefore, it is especially important that gamification is 
pervasive and well designed, usability issues are resolved, 
and tasks are clearly structured and at easy to understand. 
Research question two asks, “Which aspects of the 
gamified app would be most motivating to those who are 
likely to use it?” As discussed above, gamification can be a 
strong motivator, particularly in the form of badges or 
competition with peers. Millennials who are likely to use 
the Biotracker app are also influenced by motivations 
related to enjoyment or other personal benefits, namely 
“fun” and “learn about plants and their environment.” 
Finally, for this user group the desire to be social is acute, 
and should be supported by an application’s design. 
As one user suggested, the app did not provide a clear 
“explanation of benefits to society.” One way to resolve 
this issue could be to design badges that reward users who 
contribute to a dataset used in scientific research. A list of 
publications using Budburst data could also be included in 
the application. These and similar changes could help 
attract some of the people who were willing to participate 
in other citizen science projects, but not the Biotracker app. 
Regarding our final research question, “What potential 
benefits could this group receive from use of the gamified 
app,” we identify two main types of benefits. The first is 
Friedman’s “engagement or interest in a community,” a 
clear motive of our survey respondents [12]. This is 
exemplified by the participant who writes, “[knowing] 
what has been going on over the local area may encourage 
people to go see a nice looking patch of flowers or an 
interesting tree that others may have cached.” The existing 
literature on citizen science also supports the importance of 
place as a motivation; one survey of Neighborhood 
Nestwatch participants found that 83% reported an 
increased awareness and sense of place [11]. In this way, a 
sense of place or community is both a motivation for 
engaging with Biotracker or similar applications and a 
benefit to participation that grows over time. A closely 
related benefit listed by Friedman [12] is “time outdoors.” 
Again, this is both a motivation and a benefit for Biotracker 
users who “enjoy looking at nature and being outside.” 
Second, participants benefited from “knowledge of 
content” [12]. This is illustrated by comments like “It’s 
also nice to learn about the plants” and “could be 
interesting to learn about the species in your state, could 
learn the most from these activities,” although the 
application could admittedly do a better job providing 
educational material (“Fun facts” about each plant are 
being developed for the final release). The support for 
“knowledge of content” is consistent with the findings of 
other citizen science researchers, which suggests that in 
some cases as many as 90% of citizen science volunteers 
report increased knowledge about the species they observe 
[11]. However, it was somewhat unexpected among the 
given population who did not self-identify as being 
intrinsically interested in plants. Perhaps it was the “no 
pressure environment in which you can learn something 
new,” which helped instill this interest in plants. 
It may be possible to help transition Millennials into more 
active citizen scientists. The interest that some showed in 
learning (even as a secondary motivation) may, with 
guidance, transform into genuine interest in scientific 
content and contributions. Researchers suggest encouraging 
learning with “measurable, attainable, relevant” goals [17]. 
These learning goals could be supported with sequential 
“plant education” activities and badges. 
Limitations 
This exploratory research is aimed at establishing which 
gamification techniques are likely to engage Millennials. 
This research cannot claim, conclusively, that a gamified 
mobile app can engage these users, or can engage them 
over extended periods of time (a major concern in both 
gamification and citizen science [2,26]). An experimental 
manipulation comparing engagement between a gamified 
and a natural application would be a logical next step in 
confirming that gamification can, in fact, make a citizen 
science application appealing to this user group. 
Participants were first year college students in the 
culminating phase of a 5-week unit on citizen science. It is 
unlikely that most Millennials will have the same 
familiarity with citizen science as our sample, who attended 
four prior lectures on the topic. Therefore, responses to 
motivational prompts such as The Biotracker app 
“contributes valuable scientific data” and “contributes to 
the public good” may be overly positive. Without further 
evidence we cannot generalize data on these motivations to 
other groups. Similarly, we cannot generalize our findings 
to technology enthusiasts from otherage groups. 
Conclusions 
We evaluated Biotracker, a gamified mobile application for 
citizen science, with 71 undergraduate students from the 
millennial generation. Our evaluation assessed whether 
Millennials would use a gamified citizen science app, what 
might motivate them to do so, and what benefits they might 
derive from participation. We found that while not all of 
our participants were likely to use our application in the 
future, those who would were attracted to elements of 
gamification (competition with peers, earning badges), 
social motivations (community membership, socialization), 
and personal benefits such as fun and education. 
Participants who would use our gamified application did 
not express motivations such as the desire to contribute to 
science and the desire to contribute to a public good that 
are held by traditional citizen science volunteers [21, 25, 
26]. This suggests that gamification may reach new 
audiences for citizen science campaigns. We also found 
that Millennials can benefit from using a gamified citizen 
science app through informal science education and 
increased community engagement. 
Stratford, Ontario, Canada, October 2-4, 2013 Gamification 2013 | PROCEEDINGS
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
We would like to thank our participants, their instructor, 
our colleagues at Project Budburst including Sandra 
Henderson and Dennis Ward, and the Biotracker team. This 
work was supported by NSF grant #SES 0968546 
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