“Games are nature’s most beautiful creation.”
— Leonard Cohen
Gamification empowers UX design by tapping into human behaviour and emotions, executed correctly it levels up user engagement and increases the chances of the product becoming a huge success. Although gamification has become a bit of a buzzword of late, its basic principles have been around for centuries.
For example, what’s a technique that parents have used for generations for their children to eat their food? To make a game out of it! Either by pretending the spoon is an aeroplane landing and taking off, or even by using a reward such as a dessert.
“Gamification is both powerful and flexible — it can readily be applied to any problem that can be solved through influencing human motivation and behavior.”
– Christopher Cunningham and Gabe Zichermann
In this blog post, we will talk about gamification, specifically its role in UI/UX design. Briefly covering best techniques, with some real-world examples for context.
“Gamification is the process of using game design concepts to engage users in ways that aren’t traditionally considered game environments.”
– Ross Unger and Carolyn Chandler, A Project Guide to UX Design
Gamification is simply using mechanics or elements of games in non-game settings. Usually fun mechanics such as challenges, levels, rewards and badges — more on this later. It is not about designing and building a full-fledged game, it is literally applying elements that tend to be used for games in the design. As Brian Burke puts it in his book Gamify. “Games primarily engage players on a whimsical level to entertain them…Gamification engages players on an emotional level to motivate them.”
There are many examples, especially in the last few years where we’ve seen gamification experimented with in all sorts of sectors. Interestingly Volkwagen created an initiative called the “Fun Theory” where they tested gamification techniques in the real world. In Sweden, they implemented it with speed cameras, straightforwardly titled the Speed Camera Lottery. In a nutshell, the experiment put all drivers passing the speed camera into a lottery, drivers who obeyed the speed limit would be entered into the lottery, where they’d be eligible to win the money from the speeder’s fine. This addition of fun through competition and reward resulted in a 20% speed reduction!
Another successful gamification project was titled the Piano Staircase, which essentially transformed a plain staircase into a music-playing piano. This experiment was created to find out if more people would use the stairs over the escalator. The result, 66% more people took the stairs!
Gamification techniques have become super popular recently in UI/UX Design, and for good reason. It’s now become an essential component to many great products, products ranging from language-learning platforms, to healthcare and fitness and even digital banking. It makes perfect sense why gamification is so popular and successful. “Our brains are wired to crave puzzle solving, feedback and reinforcement, and the other experiences that games provide. Study after study has shown that games activate the brain’s dopamine system, which is associated with pleasure” (Kevin Werbach).
However, gamification is a complex subject, and not all elements of gamification are successful. It’s not simply just about slapping on some avatars, badges and leaderboards and hoping it will work. Paraphrasing Jesse Schell in his talk. Gamification is a bit like chocolate, it makes a lot of things taste better. But not everything. And having the knowledge of what works, on what, and when is the key. Jesse humorously calls adding chocolate to everything “chocification.”
Furthermore, every gamification mechanic is different, some can be more relevant than others. A good example of this is leaderboards. Leaderboards in some scenarios may actually discourage a user as they can be demotivating, especially if the top places are incredibly out of reach. Duolingo interestingly has leaderboards as an optional, you can toggle it on or off depending on if you want to participate. Another example as mentioned in the book For the Win is badges. Redding Record Searchlight’s newsletter subscriptions actually decreased after the introduction of a “deal finder” badge system.
“Game thinking asks a different question: Why do people buy your product or use your service in the first place? And it asks it in a particular way: What is their motivation? What makes your customers want to do business with you? And once you know this, game thinking asks: Can you make it more compelling, more interesting, and more fun?”
Gamification is not a cookie-cutter solution, it must be the right fit for the product, and it must meet the business needs and objectives. A simple example, gamification for a funeral business most probably would not be the right fit. Also adding game mechanics to solve fundamental and core business problems might not work either, for example, it can’t just magically heal years of shambolic customer service. This is why it’s paramount to understand the business and user needs before adding gamification techniques, you must understand the why before you go all out on confetti. Once you know what your users want (the why) and the goals you want to achieve then gamification techniques might be useful. You can gradually start introducing them with rapid testing and iterating. “Unlike video games, gamified solutions should evolve over time to add new functionality, to engage the audience in new ways, and to keep them fresh.” (Brian Burke).
