CROSS research project investigators
Summary
Making digital status physically perceptible
NGOs are knowledge intensive structures, which unfortunately often struggle to manage knowledge effectively. To support knowledge management, systems should include information-sharing facilities within and between organizations. Furthermore, gamelike features (e.g., receiving digital badges for contributions that are appreciated by other members of the community) can potentially increase the motivation of users to contribute to the system. Nevertheless, these features do not guarantee user engagement especially in a framework where knowledge sharing is not the primary mission. There is a need to make the transition between the daily tasks of humanitarian workers and the digital realm smoother. One possibility for such a transition is to embed digital artifacts into tangible daily objects (e.g. physical badges that would advertise the digital activity of a user). This project precisely aims at investigating how tangible objects can convey perceptions of status and lead to more engagement in sharing knowledge in the digital realm. To achieve this goal this project takes an interdisciplinary approach by integrating engineering researchers, humanities researchers, designers as well as, end users from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in order to validate the findings.
12.2015