Motivation-targeted personalized UI design: a novel approach to enhancing citizen science participation

Abstract

We report a preliminary exploration of the effectiveness of motivation-targeted UI design - a novel personalized approach to enhance online participation. The empirical setting was Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA), a large-scale citizen science project. Using a combination of design intervention and classification of users based on their collective identification motivation, we show that stating the community’s mission on its website increases the likelihood of contribution among those who strongly identify with the project, but decreases likelihood of contribution among those with weak identification with the project. The findings contribute to theory and practice of social systems design by demonstrating how motivation-targeted design that can enhance online participation.