Preferred Gamification Elements in a Health Behavior Change Support System for Stress Management

Stress is a serious hazard to individuals. Health behavior change support systems (HBCSSs) may support individuals to modify their behaviors toward a healthy lifestyle. Previous studies have shown that HBCSSs for stress management can improve individual coping behavior but their success depends on the users' adoption and long-term use. Gamification elements (GEs) can contribute to continuous use by motivating their users, enabling sustained healthy stress coping behavior. With a mixed-methods approach, we identified suitable GEs through six interviews with users of a mobile coping assistant prototype. Based on those insights, we designed GE mockups and surveyed 204 participants using the best-worst-scaling method to examine the users' preferences. The results demonstrate that users mostly prefer feedback elements, such as scoreboards and progress bars in HBCSSs for stress management. Social interaction GEs score worst. Our interviews indicate that this could be due to privacy reasons.