WOOL: A gamified, georeferenced mobile application for enhanced tourism exploration

Tourism mobile applications increasingly enhance user engagement and interaction with urban environments. By incorporating gamification mechanisms that reward users with achievements for visiting landmarks such as urban art murals, these apps offer a playful and personalized way to explore cities. However, balancing rewards that encourage users to visit multiple points of interest with maintaining their motivation to keep using the application remains a key challenge. This paper presents WOOL, a mobile application that integrates gamification, georeferencing, and game design techniques to enhance the tourism experience. The app verifies users’ locations, allowing them to collect and document murals (street art) throughout the city in a virtual album. On-site, visitors unlock a jigsaw puzzle related to each artwork, which they can solve immediately. The WOOL app provides tourists with a unique and playful way to interact with urban art, collecting points and building a personalized digital collection while exploring the city. The paper details the gamification mechanisms, application architecture, and puzzle development process. The app was deployed in real-world conditions, validated during one of Portugal’s largest urban art festivals in Covilhã, in collaboration with the Delta association, and is available on mobile markets. • Combines georeferencing and puzzle challenges for on-site engagement. • Describes app design, gamification logic, and real-world validation. • Evaluated during an urban art festival, enhancing visitor experience.