Gamification in the Healthcare Industry

If you are in the fitness industry you would surely need a helping hand with maintaining a high level of motivation and engagement. Have you thought about using technology for this? Have you considered using gamification to keep the participants engaged for success? If not then this blog will tell you how to achieve this.

We make a case to accomplish this KRA through ‘Pokemon Go,’ an AR game which revolutionizes fitness in a unique manner. If you are wondering how ‘Pokemon Go’ proves to be the next big thing in the fitness industry, here’s what you need to know!

Introducing Pokemon Go

While fitness freaks already know about this revolution, some of them might be unaware of the concept. Let’s introduce Pokemon Go for those who haven’t been exposed to this addictive game. As a collaborative venture of the Pokemon Group and Nintendo & Niantic Inc, Pokemon GO happens to be a captivating Smartphone app.

Pokemon GO is an application built in the gaming format. By leveraging some of the essential Smartphone features such as camera and GPS, Pokemon GO merges the fictional world of Pokemon Gyms and Pikachus.

Players can play in the real world with these virtual creatures known as Pokemon. The player should have physical proximity to these creatures, as that is what makes it visible on mobile screens. By overlaying the Pokemon’s image on a video, this particular game involves players in the real world and in real-time.

With such a unique and innovative approach, Pokemon GO is surely riding quite high in popularity. The app has garnered great attention and ranks at the top of Google Play Charts and iTunes. The manufacturers had to stop its roll out in the European market, simply because Pokemon GO servers are overloaded to a great extent.

These reports clearly indicate towards the unsurpassed popularity of this gaming application. On that note, it’s high time to find out what it does for the fitness industry.

What’s in there for fitness freaks?

Some of the remarkable spots in Pokemon Go known as ‘gyms’ are places where players engage in competitions. These places correspond to physical locations such as monuments, gardens, and fountains which require the player to come out in the open and play.

Most importantly, this particular game makes players walk around a lot. The physical movements of the player help them advance in the game. As a result, Pokemon GO has successfully pulled out players out of their couch!

Fitness benefits 

With the help of this spectacular gaming app, fitness walks have become easier than ever! You no longer need to drive, cycle, or run to stay in shape. Pokemon GO has an innovative speedometer which measures your moves and stops counting distance when the speed is above 5 to 10 mph.

Quite unlike its contemporaries, the app also warns you and keeps you aware of your surroundings. Players will come across a PokeStop if they are too close to platform edges.

Parting thoughts

With such distinctive and unique features, Pokemon GO is undoubtedly emerging as the latest revolution in the fitness industry.

A gaming environment is quite an interactive parable. It is said to be an adventure experience that can evolve to being more than a real world’s journey. As a game designer, you serve a group of people who are ruled by their passion. Together with a great user interface, you also need to work on an immersive journey that will make people forget reality and embrace the world within the game. As such, a game designer is nothing less than a superstar for the gamers. Here are some nuances that help you get the right gaming experience to your audience.

Knowing the Emotion you want your Player to go through when playing

The key to creating/designing the perfect gaming experience is asking yourself “what do I need the player to feel in the course of the game”. Is the core objective of the game to inspire excitement, mystery, fear, sense of adventure, or insanely challenging? The “Impossible Game” should be a perfect example to bring out now, wherein users feel challenged and stressed apart from the frustrating title! These emotions should be deeply laid out before you even begin writing the storyboard. “Knowing the emotions” can act as a guideline to your story and the game architecture.

Develop a Prototype Accordingly

Now that you know what you want your user to feel, start developing a storyboard that instigates the objectives (the apt emotions). This is where the story is conceptualized and requires a lot of creativity to be pitched in. Users need to be guided to your objectives using scenarios, animations, sounds and virtual rewards/recognitions. Even the gaming graphics can leverage a sense of emotions when put in place. This should be the purest state of your game.

Choose the Test Player Wisely

Before releasing a game to the end users, you need to practically test whether the real use case has been able to live to the “objectives”. Every developer offers his creation to a ‘test player’ who is meant to give the first valuable feedback for further refinement. However, be sure that the test player clearly defines your end user. To take an instance, if you have been working on a game that is meant for kids between the age of 5 and 10, you cannot have a test player who is middle aged employed person. Consider the test player as your first user and make sure he/she is capable of providing a appropriate yet relevant feedback.

Add More Suitable Elements to Bring a Zing to the Game

Now that you know the quality of your game and the suggestions for improvement, it’s time to add other additional ingredients that will uniquely identify your game from others in the market. It’s just like dressing the turkey for a delightful presentation. However these additions should also again strictly comply with your game objectives. You simply cannot have a funny clown dancing to nursery rhymes if you are trying to create a horror experience.

Compare Initial Game and Newly Refined Game to see if the Expected Experience Comes Across

The second and final process of review is to ensure that the new changes brought into the game design/environment puts the right thoughts across. If you could visualize more integration, go for them. Your game should be able to ace the gaming experience.

If you have just started off with developing games for computer or mobile, we completely understand your unbridled enthusiasm and passion behind your latest career move. However wouldn’t it be good benefit from nifty bits of suggestion based on our own experience? These points will help you avoid repeating a mistake that has happened in the past and take advantage of the hard learning’s of others. So here we go –

1. Avoid exploring complex ideas first – Games genres such as First Person Shooter (FPS) are hard to develop and it ultimately saps up the energy and time out of you by the time you are done. Are you ready to invest such a long development time without worrying about its time to market?  Can your first project compete effectively against popular games like Call of Duty? Isn’t it better to start small, gain valuable experience and then move on to bigger things?

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – Irrespective of the size of your project, make sure that you break your project into manageable tasks, get it executed, get it tested and step back to enjoy the results

2. Don’t ignore prototypes – Prototypes helps you determine whether an element, sound or character you are adding is necessary or redundant. It helps you cut down on wastages and help you check if your game, in its simplest form, is engaging. This will present you enough reasons to put in dedicated development time and efforts.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – If time is on your side, go ahead with creating 3-4 prototypes. This helps in mitigating risks by knowing that at least one of the designs will click.

3. Note it down – Make full use of the Game Design Document (GDD). It will help you keep your thoughts organized and going in a single direction. Be it characters, user interface, soundtrack or gameplay, keep all of it in tight control by noting it down.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – Many times random thoughts might come up which may or may not be used in the current project. Keep a section “Miscellaneous’ for such random/extra stuff.

4. Don’t test on friends – Reach out to complete strangers (who are gamers) for their unbiased advice that can improve your game. Break away from the comfort zone of test play with your friends.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – Did you know that you can take the latest build of your game to show off to general audience in trade shows, game festivals or events?

5. Don’t ignore marketing till the very end – If you do something well, learn how to sell it well too. Focusing only on technical aspects without getting the test play to a larger unbiased audience will lead to coverage problem upon release.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – In addition to marketing to publishers or app stores, make sure you also connect with the end user and incorporate their feedback for better success.

Here’s wishing you all the very best for your indie game development endeavor. Write in to us and share your feedback on how effective was this post in your first games development effort.

A successful app development for iOS entails close collaboration between iOS developers and graphic designers. Any disconnect between the two delays the app development process, leading to an infuriated client. In order to ensure seamless workflow between developers and designers, we have listed below a few practical and easy to follow tips for designers that save time, reduce iterations, and speed up the iOS app development process significantly-

1. Honesty at the mock up stage – At the initial stage, use only those deigns in the mock up that delivers value to the full developed app. At the mock-up stage there are a lot of unknown variables that need to be accounted for

a. will the app being developed be the right fit for your designs?
b. will your design respect the dynamism or uncertainty of real life and adjust well to actual elements, layout, data, or content?

This tip will make certain that developers’ screen mock-up truly depicts how the app will look like at the stage- i.e. when not all information is at hand.

2. Close collaboration – Constant and open communication is a must between developers and designers. As a designer, you can sit with developers and see how your designs get programmed into living entities within the app. This helps maintain overall consistency of the color and theme of the app and prevents any disconnect with what the designer delivers versus what the developer expects.

3. Avoid redundancy – If possible and applicable, you can deliver a similar set of elements as a template that can be customized further by developer and then applied appropriately. For instance, if you are designing a button element, there need not be separate buttons for ‘ok’, ‘cancel’, ‘submit’, ‘search’ etc. Developers can easily add the label upon blank buttons wherever required.

4. Design prototypes – There are tools that help designers convey a dummy depiction of how different elements will be arranged and brought together. Developers will get a sense of the different action, navigation and animation put together by you and thus remove any confusion. You can try out tools such as Invision and Proto.io to create such productive design prototypes.

5. File delivery – Developers already have a lot going on to accomplish app development. Some useful piece of advice for designers to help reduce overheads on developers would be-

a. Sorted delivery – You can make folders per screen of the app and dump all images in it. You can also put in a screenshot of entire screen with placement of various elements to avoid confusion.

b.Consistency – You would need to ensure that all elements are consistent. For instance all images should be .PNG (and not a mix of .JPG and .PNG)

c. iOS oriented – Images need to be both high res (for retina display of recent iOS devices) and low res (for older iOS devices). Also follow the universal naming convention (for e.g. suffix high res images with “@2x”).

These steps will ensure that the deliverable can be easily used by developers further in the app development process. Got any other useful point to add to the above list? Write in to us and let us know.

The 2014 Apple Conference near its headquarters in Cupertino, California turned heads by the bunch with new devices, a new payment system and new a smart watch. If you haven’t had the chance to watch it live, here is our lowdown on the key highlights of the glittering events that was as many as 4 launches in one dazzling evening.

#1 – iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus – The device every loyal Apple fan has been waiting for was finally announced by Tim Cook, the Chief Executive of Apple. While the basic look of exterior matches the iPhone 5, the slightly rounded corners managed to hold attention. Also prominent was the protrusion of the camera lens out of the phone’s body. While the iPhone 6 sports a 4.7 inch screen, the iPhone 6 Plus boasts of a huge 5.5 inch screen – the biggest screen size on iPhone till date.

Both the phones feature Retina HD display, iOS8 and 20 LTE bands. They run on the proprietary Apple A8 64-bit 2^nd generation SoC that contains a little over two billion transistors built around a 20nM process. Apple claims 25% speedier CPU and 5% boost on graphics. ¹

The price sensitive consumer would be forced to think twice before ordering the new iPhone 6. However, crazy fans around the world will see no problems in shelling out $299 for 16 GB, $399 for 64 GB or $499 for a 128 GB iPhone. The interesting thing here is the increased storage made available in place of the maximum 64GB space in previous iPhones. ²

We are sure that the new editions will be a delight to both the iOS app developers as well as the iPhone users.

#2 – Apple Pay – The conference also marked the debut of Apple Pay, a new payment process that uses NFC and fingerprint-sensing TouchId to enable purchases directly from the phone itself. Users simply have to get a one-time credit card verification done from their bank. They can then use Passbook, Apple’s online merchant services, to make payment at a wireless tap-and-pay terminal. Tim Cook claims Apple Pay to be “an entirely new category of service. And it’s all about the wallet”. ²

#3 – Apple Watch – Apple also officially announced its first Apple Watch at the event. It has an accuracy of +/- 60 milliseconds and comes in six strap styles and 2 metal frames color tones. Some of the key features include Siri integration, touch screen, a gyroscope, a heart monitor and an accelerometer. It also doubles up as a “comprehensive health and fitness device” by using a three-ring system for monitoring physical activity everyday and gauging it against set goals. It will be available from 2015 onwards at a starting price of $349.

Tim Cook’s love for music was evident when he mentioned the iTunes festival in London and the growing fan base of iTunes. He then announced the final performance of the evening by U2 and helped distribute the band’s latest album for free to the participants.

Write in to us and tell us which of the product launches of the evening did you find the most enticing?

1 – http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189787-apples-a8-soc-analyzed-the-iphone-6-chip-is-a-2-billion-transistor-20nm-monster

2 – http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/apple-live-blog-new-iphone/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

3 – Image source – Mashable

This is Part 2 of the iOS8: Amazing New Features series. You can read Part 1 here.

With the release of the new iOS 8 SDK (Software Development Kit) in June 2014, the app developers are in for some really good news. This Developer’s kit includes 4000 new APIs (Application Programming Interface), which will help the developers to add new features and capabilities to their apps that will assist in enhancing the apps’ performance.

Following is a list of the various new kits and/or features that come with iOS 8 SDK.

Advantages of iOS 8 v/s iOS 7 Features:

Games:

Technology improvements in iOS 8 make it easy for iOS game developers to implement their game’s graphics and audio. 

• SceneKit helps create 3D animated effects and scenes into apps.
• SceneKit integrated with SpriteKit helps create high-performing and battery-efficient 2D games.
• Metal offers streamlined API, a unified graphics and shading language. Modern architectural considerations, such as multiprocessing and shared memory, make it easy to parallelize the creation of GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) commands.

App Extensions:

App extensions lets the developers create actions or buttons separately, which can be used in other apps as well.

• Your app can now share photos, videos, files and website links with social networking sites and other such websites.
• You can also customise your own action buttons to help users complete various functions like translating text into another language or editing documents, and so on.
• Developers can now get their apps to display widgets such as news stories, in the ‘Today’ section of the Notifications centre.
• Also, your apps can provide storage location which other apps can also access. This helps users to edit one file using several apps.
• Create custom keyboards that users can install and use universally.

CloudKit:

• Developers can now store and retrieve their app data in a more structured, secured and efficient manner directly on the iCloud.
• They can also make the users anonymously log in to their apps with their iCloud Apple IDs.
• Now there is no need to write server-side application logic. With CloudKit, developers can solely concentrate on client-side app development.

Touch ID:

• Developers can now make use of Touch ID, the way User IDs were used to gain access to certain contents in the app.
• Touch ID cannot be accessed by iOS or any other app, and is well protected.

PhotoKit:

• Now create apps that can directly edit photos in the camera roll. Previously, users had to first import the photos.
• Other attributes include fetching objects and requesting changes, thread-safe architecture for caching and loading thumbnails, and knowledge of changes made by other apps.

Manual Camera Controls:

• Now users can use your apps and directly control the exposure settings, camera focus and white balance.
• Also, they can click pictures with different exposure settings with the help of ‘bracketed exposure captures’.

HealthKit:

• With HealthKit, all health-related information shared by the users is stored in one secured location.
• iPhone or iPad App Developers can gain access to all the information as soon as the users share them with their app. This helps the developers to provide users with a complete health-report instantly.

HomeKit:

• Developers can now create apps that will help users to locate other iOS devices in their house, for quicker configuration.
• Your apps can also control the devices with the help of certain actions.

Handoff:

• iOS 8 can make users continue using an app on another device, from right where it left off on the previous one.
• Your apps also have the option of doing the same.

Swift:

• Swift, as the name suggests, is the new fast programming language which is highly secured and interactive.
• It is used for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch.
• Writing Swift code within Xcode 6 shows immediate results before compilation into native machine code.
• Code your apps in playgrounds before moving it into projects.

Here’s part 1 of the iOS: Amazing New Features series.

(image source: Any Geo blog)