NetGauge Games Platform: Connecting People and Place while Crowdsourcing Broadband Measurements

Duval, Jared and Pendergraft, Cole and Johnson, Taylen and Vester, Olivia and Heblikar, Chaithanya S and Beach, Hunter and Hagemann, Shelby Elizabeth and Hossain, Md Nazmul and Gobbur, Varna and Graham, Alison (2025) NetGauge Games Platform: Connecting People and Place while Crowdsourcing Broadband Measurements. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. (Submitted)

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Abstract

Collecting measurements of mobile broadband (cellular Internet) performance is critical for efforts addressing digital disparities. However, collecting measurements at the necessary spatiotemporal scales to identify performance and coverage gaps is non-trivial. Crowdsourced data collection is a scalable approach to gathering mobile broadband performance data. However, existing platforms for crowdsourced mobile broadband measurements are not designed to engage workers over time or space, which can lead to spatial misrepresentation, stale data, and, ultimately, inequitable Internet access. With the insight that games and play offer naturally engaging frameworks for users, we iteratively implemented a game platform that collects Internet measurements--NetGauge Games--along with three co-designed broadband measurement games hosted within the platform. We conducted user evaluation of the platform across three locations with 25 participants and measured participants' connection to people and place using mixed methods. We found that each game's affordances yielded varied movement through space, connection to others, connection to environment, and amount of internet measurements, and we elucidate ultimate design particulars that support these often competing goals. Overall, the games performed significantly better regarding number of broadband measurements collected, connection to space, connection to others, radius of gyration, and game rankings when compared to the Speed Test control.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	mobile broadband measurement, crowdsourcing, play, rapid iterative testing and evaluation
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General)
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Faculty/Staff
Department/Unit:	College of Engineering, Informatics, and Applied Sciences > School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems
Date Deposited:	11 Feb 2026 16:50
Last Modified:	11 Feb 2026 16:50
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6352

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