Why Engagement Matters

Heather O’Brien • Paul CairnsEditors

Why Engagement MattersCross-Disciplinary Perspectives ofUser Engagement in Digital Media

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EditorsHeather O’BrienUniversity of British ColumbiaVancouver, BC, Canada

Paul CairnsUniversity of YorkYork, United Kingdom

ISBN 978-3-319-27444-7 ISBN 978-3-319-27446-1 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27446-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015957956

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part ofthe material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or informationstorage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodologynow known or hereafter developed.The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoes not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevantprotective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this bookare believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors orthe editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for anyerrors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media(www.springer.com)

For Silas, Eleanor, and Patrick:Constantly engaging . . .

Foreword

When Wittgenstein first heard the expression “it takes all sorts to make a world”,it struck him as profound. For most native English speakers, this idiom would beconversational wallpaper too commonplace to be noticed: “you pays your moneyand you takes your choice”, “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”, “there’snowt so queer as folk.” But for the Austrian philosopher “it takes all sorts to makea world” seemed to him a “beautiful and kindly saying” [3]. And the saying is,or should be, important to anyone interested in user engagement. As O’Brien andCairns point out in their introduction to this volume—engagement is a complexphenomena because users bring to it their “personal histories, knowledge, skills andemotion”. For this reason, the exact same phrase can be for one person a bland clichéwhile for another it is sublime poetry.

Slavoj Zizek argues that the fundamental contribution of psychoanalysis is todistinguish between simple pleasures and enjoyment which is often “disturbedpleasure” or indeed pain [4]. Even in a context like games, pain (or at leastfrustration) is an important aspect of engagement. The Wittgenstein story is almosttoo good to be true for a philosopher more interested in family resemblancesbetween phenomena than essentialist definitions. But stories don’t have to be trueto be useful. It is perhaps for this reason that Design Fiction is being taken upby researchers in human–computer interaction (HCI) (e.g. [1, 2, 5]). Computingtechnology is now being applied to every area of our lives: personal, social, political,sexual and spiritual. In each of these areas, designers aim to create engaginginteractions, but how to do this for different sorts of people? The obvious answer ispersonalisation, but the equally obvious question is—what if your user doesn’t likepersonalisation? Design Fiction allows us to consider character and context in waysthat conventional scenarios do not. The extract below is an extract from a DesignFiction novel that explores what the care industry of the near future might looklike. As O’Brien and Cairns point out, engagement is a diverse topic that requiresmultiple approaches. It could be argued that fiction has no place in science, evensocial science, but it takes all sorts to make a book.

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Fig. 1 Our heroes, Boris and Annabel Bide (Copyright Mark Blythe)

The Centenarians

Boris and Annabel Bide are centenarian spies called out of retirement to track downtheir old enemy @tak. Their search takes them through the care sectors of thetwenty-first century from the Careslums of Walmart Mansions to the Experientialworlds of Albion and Horny Pines. Here they are having dinner at an AppleCarefacility.

Digitally Tinted Glasses

Light shimmered through a waterfall that spanned the length of the restaurant. TheBides sat at their table watching the torrent twist and lash against the glass in streaksof white foam. Their menus showed only one choice each with a message saying that

Foreword ix

the dish had been specially selected to meet their exact physiological requirementsand also to be exactly what they happened to fancy.

“Tuna and asparagus salad,” she looked over the card at Boris, “That’s not whatI had in mind at all”.

“Well Eggs Benedict is exactly what I wanted,” said Boris, “and I didn’t evenknow it!”

“The power of suggestion.”“The power of totally awesome technology!”Service bots placed large glasses of chilled white ecoholic wine on the table.“Look at this” Boris marvelled “it’s uncanny. How did they know I wanted white

wine?”“Yes, that’s an incredible mystery isn’t it?”“Alright that was a safe bet, but how did they know I wanted it served by R2D2

out of Star Wars?”When the food arrived Annabel poked at it suspiciously, “I’d rather have had

beans on toast,” she looked down on the busy street scene on the table, “I supposeit might be quite nice to see what’s going on back home sometimes but whileyou’re having lunch it’s distracting isn’t it?” She gestured to the cataract outsidethe window, “I mean there’s an actual waterfall just there.”

“Still,” Boris was staring at the table, “it’s pretty impressive, I mean how does iteven know this is our home town?”

“The same way it knows about our dietary requirements.” The image below theplates began to fade away.

“Look, it knows we’re talking about it,” Boris pointed, “it’s going to trysomething else.”

A patchwork of green and yellow now filled the table.“It’s a landscape,” Boris enthused. “It’s as if we’re in a hot air balloon. Admit it,

that’s fantastic,” the floor around the table began to show the same display.“Oh for goodness’ sake,” Annabel tutted, “now I’m getting vertigo,” the aerial

scene crept back onto the confines of the table.Boris said he could change the table display if she wanted and before Annabel

could answer he started flicking through the default settings: a tropical reef teamingwith fish, an ice hole opening onto deep, mysterious water, a lake of fire and lavainside a volcano. Annabel told him to stop fiddling and he left it drifting throughspace.

There was a lull in the conversation and the planet their table was drifting byfaded to white.

“What’s it doing now?” Annabel frowned.Golden letters shimmered up out of the white background, “blessed is the man,”

the words appeared in the table one at a time “who having nothing to say, abstainsfrom giving us wordy evidence of this fact . . . George Eliot”

“Christ! It’s doing quotations now,” Annabel stared.“A facility for quotation,” more golden words emerged from the table, “covers

the absence of original thought . . . Dorothy L. Sayers.”“Bloody impertinence!” Annabel rolled up her sleeve.

x Foreword

“My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth . . . Hamlet”“For goodness’ sake!” She flicked at the table until it returned to drifting over the

landscape, “everything in this place is a gadget! The tables, the chairs, the floors,the plates! Why can’t they leave anything alone? Cups more or less the same forfive thousand years but not good enough now. Now they’ve also got to providehoroscopes or psychotherapy.”

“Speaking of gadgets!” Boris took a pair of spectacles from his jacket pocketand put them on the table with a roguish look, “have you tried these yet? They’reamazing!”

“No they’re not amazing,” Annabel eyed them balefully.“They’re rose tinted glasses: you get them in your welcome pack,” Boris put them

on and grinned, “they’re incredible. They take decades off you.”“What do you mean?”“They process the image they’re pointed at and enhance it. So right now they’ve

smoothed out all of your wrinkles, given back your hair and turned it brown again. Iwon’t say too much about what its done to your bosom but suffice it to say you looklike you could nurse the thirstiest of infants.”

“What?” Annabel leaned over and snatched them from his face. She put them onwarily and stared for a moment at Boris with her mouth open before doubling overwith laughter, “they’re beer goggles! Ha! Let’s both wear them tonight and see whathappens!”

“Look at that guy,” Boris nodded over at a man sitting at the table next to them.“He looks like a teenager!”“You can make the default setting any image you like. Look over there,” Boris

pointed across the room and Annabel saw an owl in a blouse sitting next to a manwith a cat’s head coming out of his neck.

When they finished their meal and started the long process of getting to their feetBoris gawped at a beautiful woman stepping lightly towards them.

“Hallo there!” her smile seemed full of love though they had never seen herbefore, “you must be Annabel and Boris, I’ve been looking forward to meeting youso much. I’m here to give you the tour of the rest of our facilities,” she linked armswith them, “I’ll be your Angel for the afternoon.”

“Our Angel?” Boris raised his eyebrows in a roguish way that Annabel clearlydisapproved of, “my dear, are you going to take us to heaven?”

“We do have a heaven if you want to go,” she led them across the glimmeringfloor, “but it’s not easy to get into.”

“I should think not,” it was clear that the spring in Boris’ step was not solelythe result of the supportive catsuit he wore beneath his clothes, “you don’t want justanyone getting into heaven eh? What’s the dress code? Blameless life, good deeds?”

“Of course not,” the Angel laughed, “just an upgrade. It’s an artificial heaven yousee. We thought—if there is no afterlife then we had better make one. We create anavatar with your memories, thought patterns, opinions, personality traits and let itloose in a digital paradise.”

“And the avatars enjoy that do they?” Annabel raised a wispy eyebrow.“Of course, they’re programmed to be happy.”

Foreword xi

“What on earth is the point of that?”“Well it’s not for everyone,” the Angel conceded, “but we sometimes find that

bereaved relatives find it comforting. The avatars are capable of conversation andsay the sorts of things that their loved ones would have said.”

“What like—where are my socks?” Annabel asked, “or how does this work?Or—it’s a bloody disgrace.”

The Angel laughedAnnabel handed the digitally tinted glasses back to Boris. “You know old walnut

I think I prefer looking at you just the way you are.”“Well,” Boris ran a bony hand over his few remaining hairs, “sometimes there’s

no alternative to the real thing.”As they left the restaurant the waterfall became a flow of molten lava and the

room was bathed in a hellish red light.

York, UK Mark BlytheSeptember 2015

References

1. Bleecker, J.: Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction. From blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com (2009). Accessed October 2015

2. Blythe, M.: Research through design fiction: narrative in real and imaginary abstracts. In Procof (CHI ’14), pp. 703–712. ACM, New York, NY (2014)

3. Eagleton, T.: Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. Yale UniversityPress, New Haven, CT (2010)

4. Fiennes, S., Zizek, S.: The Perverts Guide to Ideology. Zeitgeist Films, New York, NY (2014)5. Sterling, B.: Shaping Things. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2005)

Preface

Interest in user engagement (UE) has grown over the past several years. Influencedby the user experience movement in human-computer interaction [1, 2] and market-ing and economics [3], UE has become a primary focus of researchers, developers,marketers, and technology users themselves. Across a variety of digital domains,including health, learning, marketing and commerce, information searching, socialmedia, news, and entertainment, there is an impetus to construct, evaluate, anddesign engaging user experiences. Engagement is about creating satisfied con-sumers, learners, and searchers, but this is only part of the story. Engagement maybe used as evidence that a business is meeting (or failing to meet) its performanceoutcomes and therefore has economic implications. Engagement may also mediatepositive individual and social outcomes, such as learning and personal growth,collaboration and connectivity, civic participation, knowledge transfer, or healthbehaviour change. Thus, it is critical to understand user engagement in an era whereso many experiences and transactions are digitally mediated and hinge upon theability to motivate, captivate, and compel.

As the chapters in this book demonstrate, user engagement has been investigatedby researchers in a variety of disciplines, each with their own unique lens. AsUE scholars and professionals, we approach our work with particular ideologiesand perspectives that have been shaped and honed through years of education andprofessional experience. Our theoretical stance informs how we propose to define,model, and measure UE. For example, let us imagine that we are interested in UEin eLearning.

1. One researcher may underscore how social variables, such as students’ peer net-work in the learning environment, interact with media features and affordances(e.g. discussion forums, peer feedback on assignments) to foster engagement.

2. Another researcher may be more interested in the role of individual differences,such as learning style or self-efficacy, in engendering perceived engagement withcourse modules.

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In these examples, the researchers’ theoretical stance informs the variables andoutcomes of interest and dictates how the study of UE is approached: the firstresearcher may draw upon social network analysis or communications theory, whilethe second researcher may adopt a cognitive or constructivist orientation. Bothresearchers seek to understand how factors within the eLearning environment—media, mode of instruction, content, and other students—facilitate engagement and,by extension, learning outcomes. Thus, each has similar goals in that they wish tounderstand UE and how it affects student learning, but each will likely take verydifferent paths despite operating within the same domain.

User engagement, as with other aspects of subjective user experience, is a com-plex phenomenon. Users bring personal histories, knowledge, skills, and emotionsto their interactions with technologies, while systems vary in terms of how theypresent and organize system features and content. When user and system meet, thereis typically some kind of goal (i.e. what users hope to achieve) and one or more tasks(i.e. how users go about achieving their goal) instigating the interaction. Goals maybe leisure or work oriented and therefore fuelled by different motivations; tasksmay be clearly articulated or fuzzy in terms of how they will be performed andtheir anticipated outcome. Furthermore, all user-system interactions are situatedin broader individual, organizational, and social contexts that both facilitate andconstrain engagement. In short, UE is a complex concept to investigate.

Varied disciplinary perspectives allow us to work on individual pieces of thiscomplex puzzle at different levels of granularity. Some of us try to understanduser engagement at the level of the individual, whereas others look at UE acrossmillions of searchers or hundreds of employees in an organization. At some point,however, we need to connect these pieces into a cohesive picture. When we seehow researchers in other fields and domains are framing, exploring, measuring, anddesigning for user engagement, we gain a level of awareness that benefits our ownwork as well as collective efforts. We analyse and compare approaches and findingsto lend insight into our own research questions and dilemmas while simultaneouslyworking to identify research priorities, gaps, and opportunities for collaboration.

The purpose of this book is not to constrain UE to one perspective but to offera well-rounded appreciation for UE across different domains and disciplines. Webegin this text with foundational chapters that describe theoretical and method-ological approaches to user engagement; the remaining contributions examineUE from different disciplinary perspectives and across a variety of computer-mediated environments, including social and communications media, online search,eLearning, games, and eHealth.

The chapters on “Theoretical Perspectives on User Engagement” and “Translat-ing Theory into Methodological Practice” constitute the introduction to the bookand can be read as distinct or continuing chapters. In the chapter “TheoreticalPerspectives on User Engagement”, user engagement as a concept is explored andexploded. By focusing on three key principles for evaluating concepts, clarity,scope, and meaning, and evaluating the literature to date that defines, dissects, anddiscusses UE, O’Brien raises several questions about what we mean by UE, whatkinds of boundaries we can place on and around it, and what are its antecedents and

Preface xv

outcomes. This chapter then addresses two theoretical frameworks from positivepsychology (Flow Theory) and education (Dewey’s Philosophy of Experience) thathave informed much work on UE; two case studies featuring recent dissertationwork demonstrate the integration of multiple theoretical perspectives and informmethodology and design. Lastly, a number of conceptual and measurement modelsare articulated and compared. The chapter concludes by drawing together evidenceand ideas from the aforementioned sections to present a series of unifying proposi-tions and open questions to inform future UE research.

Measurement of UE is the focus of the chapter “Translating Theory intoMethodological Practice”. Rather than review all of the various ways in whichUE is being measured—which are diverse, exciting, context-dependent, and mirrorcurrent trends and practices in human-computer interaction—O’Brien looks at therobustness of the user engagement scale (UES) across various domains. Througha review of the literature that has adopted and adapted the UES, the author looksspecifically at its reliability, validity, and generalizability within and across contextsas a measurement tool. The purpose of the chapter is to examine the strengths,weaknesses, and unknowns of the UES, but also the reciprocal relationship betweentheory and the development and application of measurement instruments using theUES as the example.

In the chapter “eLearning”, Wiebe and Sharek begin by asking a pivotal question,“Why do we care about engagement in eLearning?” In learning environments,engagement is not an end in and of itself. Rather, it mediates learners’ short-and long-term goals and the formal and self-evaluative outcomes that indicateprogress toward those goals. The authors use an example of an engineering studentto illustrate goal formation, schema development, and behavioural change, whilealso linking these ideas to the design of eLearning environments. The emphasisof this chapter is that engagement with instructional content is “a necessary pre-condition to learning” and this position is anchored in theory and application; casestudies derived from an experiment and a massive open online course (MOOC)are used to reinforce the theoretically derived characteristics of engaging eLearningenvironments within these unique settings that vary in scale.

Digital games are the focus of the chapter “Engagement in Digital Games”.Cairns draws upon O’Brien’s Process Model of User Engagement (see chapter “The-oretical Perspectives on User Engagement”) to situate the game experience (GX)literature on digital games. He fleshes out the temporal aspects of game play fromthe point of engagement, through sustained engagement, disengagement, and re-engagement and the attributes that characterize these stages. However, he pointsout that the Process Model fails to capture two essential aspects of digital gameengagement: (1) individual differences, or why specific people play specific games;and (2) the way in which players engage outside of the game, for example, thinkingabout the game when they are not playing it, which may result in looking forinformation that will support and progress game play at a future point. A casecould be made that these missing aspects are not exclusive to digital games. Cairnscalls the latter point a “blurring” of the disengagement phase and questions how

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we should look at engagement: within a single gaming session or across a series ofsessions.

Sutcliffe, in his chapter on designing for user experience and engagement, placesclear limits on the temporal aspects of engagement, dealing with engagement at thesingle session level (chapter “Designing for User Experience and Engagement”).He presents a model that encompasses the context (e.g. who the users are and thedomain in which they are interacting) and leads to the selection of criteria (e.g.interactivity, content, aesthetics) that influence decision attributes that inform theevaluation of experience. The chapter is rich in examples of “engaging” design, andthe author emphasizes, in particular, the affective components of users—both theirpersonal dispositions and the emotions engendered through interaction. However,Sutcliffe states that the goal of the chapter is not prescriptive and that design issomething that continuously evolves; thus this chapter serves to provide designknowledge and inspiration rather than being a “how to” approach to engagingdesign.

In the chapter “User Engagement with Digital Health Technologies”, Kostkovacrafts her chapter on eHealth around four main areas of interest: knowledge orattitude change, impact at the point of care, integrative digital storytelling, andprofessional communities of practice (CoP). Each of these ideas is explored andillustrated with concrete examples of eHealth technologies designed and adapted tomeet the needs of a specific group of health consumers or practitioners. The authorunderscores the need to articulate the purpose of an eHealth technology beforedetermining what mode of delivery and design is most appropriate for engagingthe user. She also raises the conundrum that while it is fine to design “engaging”eHealth portals and environments, engagement cannot occur without, first, theawareness that they exist and, second, the ability to access them physically andintellectually.

From eHealth we move to information searching in the chapter “Engagementin Information Search”. Edwards and Kelly explore search engagement throughsmall-scale and large-scale search studies, illuminating factors of systems, users(e.g. individual differences), and tasks (e.g. degree of complexity) that impactengaging outcomes. Their review includes a range of self-report, behavioural,and physiological measures of engagement and related concepts, such as interest,that speak to the range and growing sophistication of the measurement of searchengagement. Yet, they also describe the limitations of measures—particularly whenthey are used in isolation. For example, behavioural signals are reliable whenthey are linked to cognitive and affective signals, yet on their own may be highlyinterpretive. Relatedly, measures that are not subjected to rigorous evaluation affectthe quality of the conclusions that we can draw from the research.

Oh and Sundar approach user engagement from a communications perspective intheir chapter “User Engagement with Interactive Media: A Communication Perspec-tive”, with interactivity at the heart of their model. Physical interactions with mediafacilitate cognitive and emotional involvement, which leads to content absorption,culminating in behavioural outcomes which the authors term “outreach”. As such,they emphasize that user engagement has cognitive, affective, and behavioural

Preface xvii

components and that media—its content and interactive affordances—can affectpeople’s experiences. However, the challenge for designers is translating conceptualfindings into application. What is more, Oh and Sundar acknowledge the complexityof media engagement “that involves several precursors and moderators”, speculatingthat individuals may be one such precursor. Thus a strength of this chapter—inaddition to their model—is (similar to Cairns) their consideration of factors outsideof the interactive media experience.

An additional model of user engagement is presented in the chapter “A Modelof Social Media Engagement: User Profiles, Gratifications, and Experiences” byMcCay-Peet and Quan-Haase to explain social media engagement. Their modelincludes several components: presentation of self, action and participation, uses andgratifications, positive experiences, usage and activity counts, and social context,which are discussed in depth with relevant evidence and examples. The modelsupports the main thrust of the chapter: “By examining both tangible indicators ofengagement, such as usage and activity counts, as well as more abstract indicatorsrelating to positive user experiences, we can begin to understand why people engageat the level they do, with what kinds of social media platforms, and to whateffect”. This chapter concludes with illustrative case studies, but also some thought-provoking questions to guide our inquiry in this area and which move us beyondindividual outcomes of user engagement to ethical and social implications of socialmedia engagement.

The book concludes by bridging the cross-disciplinary perspectives presented ineach chapter and proposing an agenda for future research in this area. This agendafocuses specifically on building robust theoretical and measurement models of UE,ensuring that research informs design and that application informs research, andraising awareness of the larger ethical and societal issues within which our workis situated. It is our sincere hope that this book will appeal to established andemerging academic and industry researchers who will take up and pursue thesevarious research challenges.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank everyone involved in helping us to bring this book intobeing, not least our contributing authors who spent considerable time and effort toproduce insightful chapters that share their experiences of studying engagement.We would also like to thank the staff at Springer, especially Ralf Gerstner, who havepatiently guided the production of the book. Paul Cairns would like to personallythank Heather O’Brien for pulling him onto this project late in the day. It has beena lot of fun! He would also like to thank Heather O’Brien for putting up with hislate-evening LaTeX fettling. Heather O’Brien would like to thank and acknowledgethe support of her colleagues at the iSchool, UBC, and beyond, including ElaineToms with whom this engagement journey began. And to Paul Cairns for comingaboard, being the book’s “Latex hero”, and never being in short supply of humourand encouragement.

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In the end, this book is for you, the reader. We hope you find here insight andinspiration that will lead you to produce exciting research and applications on UEin whatever field you belong to.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Heather O’BrienYork, UK Paul CairnsSeptember 2015

References

1. Blythe, M.A., Overbeeke, K., Monk, A.F., Wright, P.C. (eds.): Funology: From Usability toEnjoyment. Springer, Netherlands, Dordrecht (2003)

2. Hassenzahl, M., Tractinsky, N.: User experience—a research agenda. Behav. Inf. Technol. 25(2),91–97 (2006)

3. Pine II, B.J., Gilmore, J.H.: The Experience Economy. Harvard Business School Press, Boston(1999)

Contents

Theoretical Perspectives on User Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Heather O’Brien1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Concept of User Engagement (UE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2.1 Defining User Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.2 Clarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.3 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.4 Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.5 Assessment of UE Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3 Theoretical Perspectives for Framing User Engagement .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.1 Positive Psychology: Flow Theory .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103.2 John Dewey’s Philosophy of Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123.3 Case Studies of Multi-Theoretical Approaches to the

Study of User Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Models of User Engagement.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Translating Theory into Methodological Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Heather O’Brien1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Challenges in the Measurement of User Engagement .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Operationalizing User Engagement with the User Engagement Scale . . . . . 30

3.1 Evaluation of the User Engagement Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323.2 Discussion of the User Engagement Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

4 User Engagement Research: A Measurement Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

eLearning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Eric Wiebe and David Sharek1 Why Do We Care About Engagement in eLearning?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532 What Underlies Our Willingness to Engage? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

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3 Models of Engagement.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574 Elements of Engaging eLearning Environments .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625 Operationalizing the Study of Engagement in eLearning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

5.1 Self-report Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665.2 Behavioral Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675.3 Physiological Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

6 Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696.1 GridBlocker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696.2 MOOC-Ed Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

7 Conclusion .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Engagement in Digital Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Paul Cairns1 Playing and Engaging .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 812 Illustrating the Process Model of Engagement.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823 Starting to Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

3.1 Summary and Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894 Engagement While Playing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

4.1 Playing and the Process Model Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 924.2 Pushing the Process Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 954.3 Summary and Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

5 Disengagement and Re-engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 976 Methodological Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 997 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Designing for User Experience and Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Alistair Sutcliffe1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1052 Modelling User Experience .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063 The Psychology of User Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

3.1 Engagement and Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113.2 Summary: The Psychology of Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

4 Designing for User Engagement.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1135 Design Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1166 Design Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

6.1 Evaluation of User Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1217 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

User Engagement with Digital Health Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Patty Kostkova1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1272 Knowledge and Attitude Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

2.1 Knowledge and Attitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

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2.2 Relationship Between Knowledge and Attitude Change .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292.3 Case Study: Bugs and Drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

3 Impact at Point of Care. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1333.1 Definition of Impact in the Context of Digital Library .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1333.2 The Impact-ED Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1333.3 Case Study: NRIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

4 Interactive Digital Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1384.1 IDS Seamless Evaluation (SE) Framework .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1384.2 Case Study: Edugames4all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

5 Professional Communities of Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1435.1 Communities of Practice and Their Virtual Counterparts (VCoP). . . . 1445.2 Case Study: FEMwiki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

6 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Engagement in Information Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157Ashlee Edwards and Diane Kelly1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1572 Defining and Measuring User Engagement in Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1583 Search User Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1604 Search Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1655 Content and Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1676 Individual Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1697 Large-Scale Analysis of Commercial Search Logs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1708 Multiple Measures of Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1729 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

User Engagement with Interactive Media: A CommunicationPerspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177Jeeyun Oh and S. Shyam Sundar1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1772 Defining User Engagement with Interactive Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1793 What Determines User Engagement with Interactive Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

3.1 Medium/Interface Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1833.2 Individual Difference: Power Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

4 Why User Engagement Matters: Persuasive Potential of UserEngagement with Interactive Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1864.1 Imagery Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1864.2 Cognitive Engagement .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

5 An Empirical Example .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1885.1 Participants and Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1895.2 Stimulus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1895.3 Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1905.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

6 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

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A Model of Social Media Engagement: User Profiles,Gratifications, and Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199Lori McCay-Peet and Anabel Quan-Haase1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1992 Conceptualizing Social Media Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

2.1 Presentation of Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2022.2 Action and Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2022.3 Uses and Gratifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2032.4 Positive Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2072.5 Usage and Activity Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2092.6 Social Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

3 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Heather O’Brien and Paul Cairns

Contributors

Paul Cairns University of York, York, UK

Ashlee Edwards University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Diane Kelly University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Patty Kostkova Department of Computer Science, University College London,London, UK

Lori McCay-Peet University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada

Heather O’Brien University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Jeeyun Oh Robert Morris University, Moon, PA, USA

Anabel Quan-Haase University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada

David Sharek Playgraph LLC, Cary, NC, USA

S. Shyam Sundar Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

Alistair Sutcliffe Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manch-ester, UK

Eric Wiebe North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

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