Spot that Bird: A Location Based Bird Game
This addresses the need for accessible natural world information for hikers and trail-goers, but it is incremental as it applies existing location-based and gamification techniques to a specific domain.
The paper tackles the problem of providing outdoor enthusiasts with information about local birds by designing a location-based mobile game that suggests birds likely to be sighted and awards points for correct photo uploads, resulting in an application aimed at enhancing engagement and learning.
In today's age of pervasive computing and social media people make extensive use of technology for communicating, sharing media and learning. Yet while in the outdoors, on a hike or a trail we find ourselves inept of information about the natural world surrounding us. In this paper I present in detail the design and technological considerations required to build a location based mobile application for learning about the avian taxonomy present in the user's surroundings. It is designed to be a game for better engagement and learning. The application makes suggestions for birds likely to be sighted in the vicinity of the user and requires the user to spot those birds and upload a photograph to the system. If spotted correctly the user scores points. I also discuss some design methods and evaluation approaches for the application.