Piotr Sadujko - If There's a Will, There's a Waze: The Culture Behind Waze

Waze it out
According to Waze’s website, Waze is “the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app”. Much like many GPSs that are provided on cellular phones and other smart devices, Waze enables users to see live updates of traffic on the road, helping users to not be surprised if they are going to be late. However, unlike other applications, such as Google Maps, Waze allows users the ability to “work together towards a common goal: to outsmart traffic”. Rather than simply telling users where there is traffic, Waze redirects drivers to be able to avoid the traffic all together.

Waze also offers other benefits, too. Such include the ability for users to know important details while driving, such as potholes in the road, accidents ahead, and police sightings (both hidden and visible). All of these features are able to get from one user to another through the use of Waze’s participatory culture.

Participatory Culture of Waze
One of the ways Waze is able to update users on-the-go is through the use of its participatory culture. Users who are ahead are able to warn others of anything when they are experiencing in real-time. Whether it is that they are stuck in traffic, witness to an accident, or warning others that they have spotted a hidden speed trap, drivers are able to update Waze users directly as they see it happening. Waze’s participatory culture revolves around a reward system for users. Users are able to achieve points for various reasons; from the amount of kilometers you’ve driven, to the number of incidences you’ve reported, to the amount of map edits you’ve create; Waze distributes points in accordance to the things you do. The more points a user accumulates, the higher they will be on the Scoreboard.

Much like video games, Waze provides Ranks, and gives users the different rankings, which is dependent on the amount of points you have. A Baby Wazer is someone who has driven less than 160km, and has an icon of a Baby Waze. A Waze Grown Up enables users to be able to pick their own mood, thereby allowing them to change the icon associated with their Waze icon on the road. The rankings continue on into Waze Warrior, who is a user in the top 10% of their region ; Waze Knight, a user who is in the top 4% of their region; and the Waze Royalty is awarded to the top 1% of their region. By doing so, Waze compels users to actively participate with the app, while updating other users.

Case Study
Ngsoft’s case study discusses how “using gaming elements…managed to create a strong incentive to be an active contributing member of a drivers’ community…no longer [are drivers] a statistic moving dot, but…got a name, an online identity (avatar), and the ability to easily report on…everything on the road and communicate with other fellow drivers”. This shows that rewarding users for things that they have done actively motivates users to participate, thus conditioning them to repeat the process in the future.

This concept is in-line with a research study conducted by Judy Cameron which draws conclusions on how giving rewards to people for activity such as the points system and different icons unlocked for the user would be representation of a successful achievement in an activity. Thus, it would help motivate users to perform activities and other small tasks repeatedly in the future, causing internal and external motivations.

The Big Picture
The participation of Waze users raise questions as to what it means to be a participatory culture. It asks how Waze has changed the way that we drive, as well as how it has changed the way we interact with other drivers. Through this study, I will be putting together a survey questionnaire, which, with hopes, will help gain a better understanding as to the drive to use and participate in Waze activity.

Method
I plan to ask users what drives them to participate in this community, and what keeps them from moving to other applications. How much trust do they impose on other users, and what primary aspects draw the user to use the application. Through these questions, I would like to draw further conclusions as to what it means to be part of the Waze community to work together in synchronization to beat traffic.