Impact of gamification elements on user satisfaction in health and fitness applications: A comprehensive approach based on the Kano model

As health and fitness applications (apps) take on larger markets, attracting and satisfying users has become a crucial task. Gamification, a popular ancillary design used in various fields, was gradually introduced into apps to make the products more attractive and practical. As previous studies mainly focused on the mechanism or efficiency merely on specific gamification elements (GE), heterogeneity was prominent, and scope was limited. Hence, this study comprehensively arranges GE into four dimensions. The main objective is to determine the correlation between gamification dimensions and user satisfaction. Natural language process and sentimental analysis were used in online reviews (N = 45,659) of a typical fitness app to build a hierarchical conception vocabulary of gamification words, elements, and dimensions, as well as calculate the degree of elements' realization. Meanwhile, Kano model-based questionnaires (n = 110) quantitatively classified GE into different quality classifications. A user satisfaction score was provided at the end to quantitatively measure the correlation between GE and user satisfaction, demonstrating that different dimensions corresponded to a different level of contribution to user satisfaction (non-negative, stable positive, limitation, and uncertain). Furthermore, suggestions for designing strategy were given as an instructor for further improvement and design.