Thoughts on Gamification, Space, and Engagement
At the beginning of November, our study program visited the CoSa Museum in the Joanneumsviertel Graz to explore different approaches to gamification. I ended up finding the visit surprisingly relevant—not only for our current gamification project, but also for my own interests and future research directions.
Two Exhibitions, Two Completely Different Experiences
The first exhibition, focused on finances, used a points-based system: each visitor received a small card to collect scores through quizzes and mini-games. In theory, this should create engagement—but for me it felt weird, having to collect points on this card. Many of the interactive elements were repetitive and not really made for my user group, as it was more targeted towards children, which made the “gamification” feel fake. While some visitors were motivated by the scoring system, it highlighted how differently reward mechanisms work for different people.
The second exhibition was the opposite experience: playful without needing points or external rewards. It included optical illusions, small scientific experiments, AI content, and even a recreated hospital room where you could analyse “blood samples.” It encouraged touching, testing, and—importantly—failing. The space itself felt more intuitive and exploratory, almost messy in a productive way. It communicated curiosity rather than instruction. However, it also felt very overwhelming, as there was so much to see, hear and interact with. Especially considering, that there were about 40 people trying everything out at once.
But in general this showed me how much spatial design influences motivation. Gamification isn’t just about adding tasks or scores but more about creating an environment that naturally invites participation. Emotional involvement comes from atmosphere, not from artificial incentives. The visit made me think about how communication design extends far beyond visuals. It includes the construction of environments that shape how people behave, learn, and interact. Good gamification is a communication strategy: it creates meaning through experience, not just through information. This raises big questions for me:
– How do we design environments that promote exploration rather than passive consumption?
– How do we invite engagement without feeling manipulative?
– And how do we use interactivity purposefully, not as decoration?
Connecting This to Fit Like Arni
Reflecting on the museum made me look at Fit Like Arni (our gamification concept) differently. Our project is intentionally playful and over-the-top. It uses humor, exaggeration, and nostalgic “action-energy” to motivate people to move. But what actually makes it work is not the visual jokes or the 80s fitness aesthetic, it’s rather the way it creates meaningful engagement through action. The second CoSa exhibition, with its hands-on, fail-and-try-again approach, is much closer to what Fit Like Arni tries to do. It motivates through:
- physical interaction
- immediate feedback
- embodied experience
- humor and narrative atmosphere
Linking This to my (possible) Master Thesis
This experience also sparked some ideas for my potential master’s topic, as I tried to connect it directly to my research interest in visual data storytelling in motorsport. Motorsport is a world full of incredibly complex data. Speed telemetry, tire degradation, energy recovery, aerodynamics, pit strategy, track evolution, risk management, just to name a few. But most people only experience the surface layer: the race.
The museum helped me realise something important:
To make complex systems understandable, people need interactive, embodied, and emotionally engaging ways of experiencing data, not just reading it. Just like the second exhibition made science feel intuitive and “playable,” motorsport data could become more accessible if transformed into interactive narratives or gamified visual experiences:
- letting audiences feel the impact of a strategic decision
- visualizing telemetry in ways that encourage exploration
- creating interfaces where people can “play with” racing scenarios
- designing systems where failure, discovery, and experimentation become part of the learning experience
This aligns with what worked in the second CoSa exhibition and with what we aim to build in Fit Like Arni: meaningful interaction as the core of engagement.
It made me think that my master thesis could explore how gamified digital storytelling can translate complex motorsport data into intuitive experiences. Not necessarily through points, but through participation, immersion, and agency.
