Gamification has been widely applied in educational contexts to enhance students' motivation and engagement. Its effectiveness has been shown to vary based on individual user preferences, such as age, gender, and player type. This study investigates the relationship between player types and user experience in StandByMe, a gamified educational platform designed to raise awareness about gender-based violence. A total of 61 high school students used the platform for about 35 minutes and completed a user experience questionnaire and the Hexad scale for player types. Results indicate that Free spirits reported higher motivation and overall user experience, while Achievers exhibited lower engagement, possibly due to a lack of clearly structured challenges. Socializers and Disruptors showed no significant relation with user experience. Additionally, demographic factors such as age and gender were related to participants' fun levels and perception of challenge. These findings highlight how users' player type predicts the user experience of a gameful system and should be considered during the design phase. Future research should explore adaptive gamification approaches and specific design modifications to enhance user experience across all player types, both within the StandByMe platform and, more broadly, in gameful systems for the education of sensitive topics.

Gamification is a widely embraced strategy in education, employed to enhance motivation and foster effective learning outcomes. However, its application to sensitive topics has been scarcely explored and remains a subject of debate. While gamification holds the potential to elevate engagement and motivation in the learning process, it also introduces certain limitations, such as the risk of trivializing the subject matter and diverting attention from the core content. This paper delves into an investigation, supported by both a literature review and a survey conducted among professionals, focusing on the implementation of gamification mechanisms in child sexual abuse education. By examining insights gathered from prior research and engaging with experts, the paper identifies key facets of gamification mechanisms in the design of educational interventions addressing child sexual abuse and related topics. The aim is to contribute to a nuanced understanding and effective utilization of gamification when addressing sensitive topics in education, offering preliminary guidelines for practitioners.

Gender-based violence is widely recognized as a significant societal issue, necessitating a concerted effort to raise awareness about its manifestations and consequences. Serious games have been often used to address the topic, particularly among the younger population. On the other hand, the use of gamification (i.e., integrating game elements to enhance user engagement with the subject) to raise awareness of gender-based violence remains unexplored. To address this gap, we developed a gamified platform aimed at raising awareness of gender-based violence and in particular of the role of gender stereotypes, in young adults. This paper presents the findings of our preliminary mixed-methods evaluation and a comparison between two versions of the platform: one employing cooperative gamification, and the other one based on an individual game modality. While the quantitative results indicate that the current platform may not be sufficient to have a positive effect in participants’ awareness of gender-based violence and attitudes toward bystander behavior, qualitative analyses yield crucial insights into participants’ positive evaluation of the cooperative mode. These analyses provide valuable information for future developments of the platform, and contribute to the exploration of gamification applied to sensitive topics.

Children's role in the design of new technology has been widely investigated. Recently, the research focus has shifted, from the technology they help create, towards what children gain by participating in design workshops. This paper intercepts this line of research. It reports on a design workshop with 27 children, aged from 11 to 14 years old, ideating, programming and prototyping smart objects for their town park. Data were gathered in relation to children's beliefs, before and after the workshop, and in relation to their understanding of design, after the workshop. The analysis of the gathered data suggests that the workshop positively affected children's beliefs and understanding of design, giving indications for future work concerning design as means of empowerment.

With the launch of new game controllers such as the Microsoft Kinect for Xbox, novel forms of game interaction are introduced such as gestures and voice. These new control mechanisms raise some questions regarding the user experience. In this paper, an initial study is presented for evaluating the user's experience and motivation, by measuring the emotional state (self report measures), during a simple game scenario. A game was designed and implemented in order to test this hypothesis. To investigate this topic a comparative study of two similar prototypes (mouse input vs. Kinect input) of a 2D game about the history of photography was conducted. Two different groups tested these two prototypes. The first findings from the pilot experiments indicated that using voice and gestures as an input method caused higher user valence and dominance than the use of mouse. In addition, users seemed to find the mouse version more user-friendly but they reported more satisfied playing the Kinect version.