EncoreLife: A Gamified Social App for Fulfilling Retirement
Make Retirement an Encore of Your Beautiful Life!
Over recent decades, the continuous rise of life expectancy along with the trend of early retirement have led to Americans spending more time in retirement. Retirement is gradually regarded as an extension of midlife, rather than an indication of advanced age [1, 2] – however, longer retirement can sometimes have unintended consequences, including heightened loneliness owing to a reduced social circle [3], potentially leading to adverse mental and physiological health outcomes [4].
Without a thorough transition plan for maintaining regular social activities, new retirees might tend to feel a bit lost in the void of accomplishment, a sense of belonging and life structure, which may result in their lack of purpose in life. This is where EncoreLife comes into play – a tool specially designed to navigate these challenges.
We interviewed six elders aged 65 to 85 (72.3 on average) and reviewed related literature to gain insight into this project. One of the interviewees is soon to retire, while the others are freshly retired between 2 to 6 years.
Obstacles To A Fulfilling Retirement
1. Lack of Accomplishment
Without the daily to-do lists and career goals, a retired life does not always provide as many challenges as a professional life does, therefore retirees may be lacking purposes to live for.They should actively seek out and remind themselves of small achievements in daily life, such as cleaning and cooking.
2. Lack of A Sense of Belonging
As opposed to having regular professional relationships, most retirees may feel aligned from losing daily touch with their work buddies. To reduce their feeling of social isolation, they can instead involve themselves in other group activities, such as volunteering and fitness classes.
3. Lack of Life Structure (And Control!)
Afterfor retirement, there is no longer a strict schedule to stick to. While enjoying the flexibility, retirees need to restructure their daily life to regain a sense of control. They should pursue a balanced time management between leisure and fulfillment.
Based on the issues we identified above, we have developed a platform that provides retirees with fun activities to do and interesting people to hang out with – EncoreLife.
EncoreLife: A Gamified Social Application
EncoreLife is a gamified application integrating various offline local communities for fresh retirees. Each group assigns individual and collaborative activities for users, and users can unlock achievements, rewards, and new features after completing them.
By providing fresh retirees with things to do and groups to mingle with, EncoreLife fosters a smoother transition from employment to retirement.
Gamify the transition period
Gamification Octalysis [5]
Why gamification? Gamification motivates people and gets them engaged. We aim to encourage retirees to spend time on the platform and form a community, therefore, with the two main features, “gamified collaborative activities” and “gamified hybrid social interaction”, EncoreLife provides social support, enhances a sense of accomplishment, and life structure, which all improves quality of life for retirees in the transition period, setting the foundation for a healthier retirement.
Project EncoreLife’s research model, aiming to improve quality of life in new retirees’ transition period
Key Feature 1: Collaborative Offline Local Activity
EncoreLife collaborates with local organizations and interest groups to provide hybrid gamified challenges, like sharing a coffee or hiking to a waterfall. Users can invite friends to join the same activity, check everyone’s progress, and earn virtual badges and real-life rewards.
Increase sense of accomplishment
Gamification features
Achievement badges, points, level up (Accomplishment)
Progress bar, congratulation page (Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback)
Customized activities (Ownership)
Special holiday activities (Scarcity)
One testee conducting an activity: sharing a coffee with someone
Key Feature 2: Hybrid Social Interaction
After completing one challenge, users can share their achievements with their group and use rewarded points to co-build the virtual hang-out space, which starts from a small house and gradually grows to a luxurious penthouse. They may decorate their personal boards with hard-earned prizes, know how others are doing by reviewing theirs, and make new friends via the activities and groups.
Improve sense of belonging
Gamification features
Group shared space, group challenges (Ownership and Personalization)
Group leaderboard, share to group & social media (Social Influence and Relatedness)
From the original group house distributed to a group to the well-decorated group house, which users will gain after putting in collaborative efforts
Key Feature 3: Activity Management
As users interact with many people and activities, EncoreLife also helps them manage daily life easily. With a personal calendar and real-time reminders, EncoreLife empowers users to live their retirement fully at their tempo.
Enhance life structure
Users can organize their tasks via calendar or task list, with real-time reminders popping up as app notifications.
“I feel I have more in common with other members.”
Our testees concluded that EncoreLife was more flexible and collaborative than their usual local social groups.
2. Collaboration
Testees can check other team members’ badge boards to get to know each other better – “I feel I have more in common with other members,” said one participant, “because I can know what they feel and think about.”
1. Flexibility
By assigning manageable activities, EncoreLife kept testees engaged without pledging overwhelming time commitment.
We conducted user testing with four retirees aged 68 to 85 (74 on average).
However, our draft prototype provided only one linear demo, thus participants struggled to explore the application and use all its independent features, resulting in lower satisfaction (66.2/100) onSystem Usability Scale (SUS) - the combination of gamification, a new concept, and three primary yet essentially independent features, EncoreLife requires a significant learning curve from newcomers at the moment.
“It’s like playing games with your friends, and you have interesting things to do.”
“I feel more collaborative and it seems you can accomplish something.”
“I need to always check calendars, so those reminders are wonderful.”
(after seeing the group leaderboard) “I want to be on the top!”
Duration
2023/02-2023/05
Instructor
Dr. Saleh Kalantari
Team Members
Hsin-Ming Chao, Zhiwen (Calvin) Qiu, Mengye (Manya) Zhu, Chaoyu (David) Wang
My team designed this application in the course Studies in Design Thinking, which was under Cornell University Human Centered Design. Special thanks to Lifelong for helping us recruit all the interviewees and testing participants.
[1] Kim, J. E., & Moen, P. (2001). Moving into retirement: Preparation and transitions in late midlife. In M. E. Lachman (Ed.), Handbook of midlife development (pp. 487–527). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
[2] Reitzes, D. C., & Mutran, E. J. (2004). The transition to retirement: Stages and factors that influence retirement adjustment. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 59(1), 63-84.
[3] Abramowska-Kmon, A., & Łątkowski, W. (2021). The impact of retirement on happiness and loneliness in Poland—evidence from panel data. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(18), 9875
[4] Czaja, S. J., Moxley, J. H., & Rogers, W. A. (2021). Social support, isolation, loneliness, and health among older adults in the PRISM randomized controlled trial. Frontiers in Psychology, 4307.
[5] Chou, Y. (2015). Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.