Design and Implementation of Gamification Elements for a Clinical Research App

Short Description and Tasks

Note: While this text is written in English, the working language in the project can be German or English.

This project is offered jointly by ki:elements, a Spin-Off company from the DFKI developing digital speech biomarkers for neurological and psychiatric indications, UMTL group at DFKI and the interaction experience group at Saarland University of Applied Sciences (htw saar) lead by Prof. Dr. Maximilian Altmeyer, who is researching how gamification can enhance user experience and adherence in healthcare contexts.

The platform you’ll contribute to is an existing data collection platform. The platform should be extended with additional speech elicitation tasks and gamification elements. These tasks serve as the foundation for collecting speech data and are used to develop and validate speech biomarkers.

It is a web platform developed in Angular and NodeJS. It is actively used in collaborative research projects, such as GRANOLA together with HTW, exploring how gamification can improve adherence in decentralized trials.

This student project will focus on implementing small speech based tasks into the platform and designing, developing and integrating tasteful, motivating gamification elements to further enhance participant engagement, user experience, and adherence, carefully tailored to the needs of a clinical context.

In this project, you will work in a small team (2–5 students) to:

• Design modular, static gamification elements.
  • The exact number of game elements will depend on the size of the group.
• Implement these elements in Angular, ensuring they:
  • Seamlessly match the existing app design and color scheme
  • Work robustly in web (i.e. follow responsive design standards)
• Integrate them into the platform, by:
  • Making each element fully toggleable per study (so each study can switch them on/off as needed)
• Focus explicitly on static (non-adaptive) gamification for now.
  This sets the stage for future personalization or dynamic adaptation, which we plan to explore in follow-up projects.

What’s in it for you (besides the ECTS):

This project is perfect if you’re interested in applying gamification to a meaningful healthcare setting, not just entertainment apps.

You will:

• Work directly on a web platform (front- & backend), which can be used in trials and research studies on Alzheimer’s, depression, MS and more.
• Design and implement high-quality UI/UX that respects the needs of a diverse group of participants.
• Help shape how future studies measure participant engagement and adherence, gaining experience that’s highly relevant in both industry and research.
• Contribute your work to an existing production platform instead of building throwaway demos.

Angular and TypeScript skills are a plus, but not mandatory. If you have experience with other frontend or backend frameworks and are happy to adapt, that’s just as valuable.

Timeline & Milestones

Phase 1 – Research, Design & planning (~3-4 weeks)

Focus: Definition of game elements, UX concept and implementation plan, including task allocation

Activities and results:

• Creation of UX wireframes and user flows
• Decision on which game elements to implement
  (unless specified; depending on the number of people)
• Definition of how each element is to be implemented (visually + technically)
• Definition of how the speech task is to be implemented
• Distribute responsibilities within the team

Phase 2 – Implementation (~6-7 weeks)

Focus: Development of gamification components and their integration into the platform

Activities and results:

• Development of the speech elicitation task
• Development of selected game elements
• Integration into the existing system
• Review/implementation of code and testing
• Delivery of the first version

Phase 3 – Final Testing & Refinement (~2-3 weeks)

Focus: Completion, testing and preparation for handover

Activities and results:

• Applying improvements and corrections based on feedback
• Final Testing
• Documenting the switch options, implementation details, …
• Delivering the final version and documentation
• Depending on group size: Conducting a small user study to evaluate the impact on users