User Motivation

User motivation is a key for long-term participation and for the gain of experience by the users in Citizen Science apps.

Increasing the long-term motivation of the participants is a vital key element in running volunteer-based projects. To help with long-term user motivation, all Apps on the SPOTTERON platform include tools for rewarding users for their activity and participation.

With the motivation of the user base being such a crucial factor for a successful project, integrating modern digitally-rewarding concepts is a must in Citizen Science. A motivated user base provides more frequent and higher quality observations for the project's data set. User-motivation features foster friendly competition and provide ongoing user incentives for participating actively in the project over time. Along with a vibrant digital-social community welcoming and interacting with new users, the SPOTTERON platform offers more than just a new way to collect data - it enables integrating participation in science into our daily lives.

User Motivation Features

Custom Push Messages

Integrated tool for reaching out to every participant in your project's App with custom short messages for news, updates, and project involvement

Badges

Earned by ongoing participation, Badges are rewards for the user for active involvement and are visible to all connections in the user community.

Custom Spot Names

Possibility to let participants input a custom Spot name for their observations for increased identification and information

Timelines

Creating ongoing chronological observations of the same location or object for change-data recording and user data diary

Statistics Panels

Displaying chronological data from Timeline observations in the form of line charts and statistics in the detail-view of a Spot

Top Spots

Option for project administrators to highlight core data entries of the project or user contributions with high quality or importance

Spot Collection Panel

A User-Profile panel with an ever-growing collection of all contributions of a user in the project's App

Dynamic Observation Counter

An increasing counter of all combined data contributions by the community in the top area of the project App

Community Motivation

Due to the integrated digital-social Community Toolkit, users find an active and welcoming environment for participation.

Project-to-User Message Boards

Project administrators and moderators can contact users privately to get in contact and provide feedback.

Citizen Science Statistics on Smartphone App

Design and Application Quality as a motivational factor for Citizen Science and Public Participation

The platform further supports participant motivation with a strong focus on quality, design, and performance. Nothing hinders our motivation more than clunky Apps that stop functioning when we need them to run reliably. On SPOTTERON, part of our work is to ensure user interfaces are appealing, performance is stable, and your App works well when there is something to record for your project's data set.

With built-in motivational features, the so-called "dropout rate," meaning how many users stop participating after one contribution, gets significantly lower. On SPOTTERON, after the first upload, the App says: "Thank you" with a beautiful Badge, resulting in a positive feeling towards the project.

The User Motivation Features are already included in all SPOTTERON packages without additional costs.

See packages