Integration.

In many cases, gamification is meant to add some kind of layer of engagement to a process and possibly even fun. What it is not meant to do is add extra effort for the end user. With that in mind, how you integrate it into your tasks or processes is critical.

If a user thinks that it is too much effort to play the game, they just won’t play. It should all be as seamless as possible.

Automate everything that can be automated. If it can’t be automated, do it in the back office without the user seeing it. In cases where the gamification layer actually needs input from the users, such as Quora or Yahoo Answers, it has to be as easy as possible and the rewords should definitely be automated!! At no point should the users feel like they have to go out of their way to be involved in the “game”. In the cases where user interaction is needed, be sure that the reward is worth it. Nothing is more likely to stop users interacting, than if they can get the same value reward by doing nothing!

After all, for the most part, we are trying to make things more interesting, more engaging and more productive for everyone. If your integration makes it harder to achieve their task, it is hardly worth it.

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid!

The short answer to this is, misguided over complication.  As more people jump on the gamification bandwagon, people’s definitions and ideas seem to be getting ever more complex.  They seem to miss the core point about gamification.

Recently at gSummitX, Gabe Zichermann was discussing the key reason games work.  Just as I have described games simply as Task and Reward, he added a key final stage.  Ahhhhh.  Task, Reward, Ahhhhh.  As he explained, that Ahhhh is the release of Dopamine – a feel good drug the body creates when you achieve something.  In video games this is happening constantly.  Within your workday, under normal circumstances, it probably never happens.

So, back to complexity.  In general the more unnecessarily complex something is, the less enjoyable the majority will find it.  Take Space Invaders.  A game that is some 30 years old, yet still people are striving to get three letter representations of their names onto a leader board to hold the high score.  Same with Pac Man and many other “classic” games. These days, for the most part (I will explain), I can’t think of many games that people will still be playing in 30 years time.  My exception to this has to be RPGs.  As a friend pointed out, these can span many years of activity with little more than content updates. This also works around a more social dynamic as well.  People form communities and keep each other going. However, they still tend to need updates.    When was the last time Space Invaders was given a content update? The reason for all of this is that these games contain the absolute minimum of mechanics.  Shoot, dodge, shoot, dodge.  That’s it.  Pac Man is a little more complex.  Run, Eat, Avoid, Chase – but we are hardly talking 100 keys and a million things happening at once. There are of course other motivates for constant refresh.  The current generation of gamers can handle much more information and complexity than previous generations.  They need constant updates to stay interested.  In addition, it makes the games companies more money!

Now, you can agree or disagree with that – doesn’t matter to me.  The next bit is what is important anyway!

With gamification, you tend to be trying to influence behaviour in a simple and fast way.  Score boards, badges, loyalty point cards etc.  These are all very simple and easy for the end user to understand.  What is beginning to happen is over complication of these simple ideas.  Multiple levels of loyalty, almost RPG like quests in areas that need nothing more than a simple leader board.  That is not to say that the more complex ideas won’t work.  It is more about not using them just because you can, but because they fit the needs of the problem.

There are many ways to implement gamification.  What you have to keep in mind is what best suits the needs of the users, clients, task or whatever.  If all that is needed is a badge or two, then use them.  If you can see that the best way to drive engagement is to introduce a full RPG style quest, reward system then use that.  Just keep it simple if you can.

Oh and that core point that people seem to miss – fun.

You will also have recently seen my post Gamification Gone Bad, which shows you a few pitfalls.  The next step is to actually start to gamify stuff. First, I thought I would make you do some work and ask you a few questions.

First Phase

1. What is the exact task or process you want to gamify?

It’s all well and good saying “I want to gamify X, Y or Z”.  The trouble is, what part of it do you want to gamify?  If it is a single task, that’s fairly easy. If you are looking at a process as a whole, then it gets a little trickier.  Most likely it is just one or two tasks that you wish to gamify to improve the engagement or motivation needed to achieve those tasks.

2. Why do you want to gamify it.

This could be the first question, but I think it helps to have an idea what you want to gamify and then figure out why (before how).  Is it just because you think you need to, or is there some intrinsic benefit to the process.  Will it improve the productivity of you team by gamifiying the tasks they do day to day?  Will it make the task more interesting?  These are all questions you have to ask about each task you are looking to gamifiy (A checklist is below).

3. How are you going to gamify it.

So you know what you want to gamify and why you want to do it.  Finally you need to look at how.  This is a big question which, with luck you will have some ideas about from my previous writing.  Will a leader board and some badges work? Are you looking to fuel pride, ego, productivity or any of the other emotions or mechanics?

Second Phase

1. Collect Feedback

It is so important that the users of the new solution are able to give feedback.  If they think it is rubbish, then it is of no use to anyone.  Don’t get proud about your solution, be prepared to try another approach.  There is no “one size fits all” solution here.

2. Collect  Metrics

You have to collect metrics about the new solution.  If you can’t tell if there is any change in the behaviour of the users or that there is an increase in productivity, then how are you supposed to know if it is all working?

The Overall Check List

• I Know WHAT I am going to Gamify
• I know WHY I am gamifying it
• I know HOW I am gamifying it
• I have discussed this with the potential users
• I have implemented a beta of the solution
• I have run user testing with a group
• The users have provided feedback
• I have made changes based on the feedback where possible
• I have launched the solution
• I  am collecting quantifiable feedback and success / failure metrics

Things to remember

Don’t get me wrong, these are all very hard questions to answer if you want to do this properly.  There are also a few other things that need to be done after these three questions are fully answered.

Never forget, gamification will only be successful if the users buy into it.

Think about whom your users are – your target audience.  Will your ideas be seen as patronising, are you trying to over simplify it all.

Most importantly, is it going to make the tasks more bearable or more productive – is it fun?

Most important of all, and this is so big I think it needs mentioning again – Will there be any gain to anyone.  Gamification for the sake of it is bad.  There must, must, MUST be a reason for it and the solution must, must, MUST  be done well and with the user in mind at all time.

Until next time, Soupytwist

Just because you add pretty graphics and you’ve added some animations doesn’t mean you’ve created a good gamified piece of e-learning. If what you’ve added actually makes it harder to complete the e-learning module then you failed.

Gamification  is about adding to the experience of the user,  it’s about motivating and engaging with the user. If what you’re adding actually creates a barrier between you, your user and what you’ve been trying to achieve then you need to reconsider your strategy.

In recent times, I’ve seen a trend towards adding superfluous animations, extra bits of pseudo-points, rewards, collection and leader boards. This is then proclaimed to be a gamified experience.  What actually happens is, you start with a module that should take about 10 minutes to go through, but because of the extra “gamified” elements actually takes closer to 40 minutes.

Remember if you’re adding points, these points need to mean something. If you’re going to have some kind of leader board it needs to actually have a multiplayer aspect so that other members of the company can see each other scores.   Also, keep in mind, within a company most people are very busy.  If they have to take some kind of course online, it needs to be efficient and as quick as possible to get it’s point across.  Having to watch animations between each question is going to frustrate people.  Cute “fun” graphics will patronise them.  Keep it simple and to the point.

Most importantly there needs to be some kind of reason to add all of this to your learning materials.  Gamification for the sake of Gamification is wrong. It should always add an extra layer of engagement. If adding what you are adding prevents the user from achieving their goals simply and efficiently then they will not respond to it and you have failed.

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Now a shameless plug.  I’ve spoken about what Gamification is and how to start to make use of it at great length. I want to move on a bit now to ideas that are more advanced and more examples of real world usage.  As such, I have put together a little eBook on Amazon (iBooks soon) called Gamification: A Simple Introduction. It is based on my blogs, with extra bits and a few updates. It is only about  6500 words and is a cheeky 77p (99c). You can get it from Amazon now.  Be warned it is pretty simple stuff!

Just Because You Build It, Doesn’t Mean They Will Come

The first reason is simple, but one that I never really thought of until I started using them on my site.  For trophies and the like to actually start to work – you need the people you wish to keep engaged to actually be registered with you.  When you are in a company and are using it on an intranet, that is simple, as they all have to be registered to use it.  However, when you are trying to use it on your website or blog, it is not quite the same.  Very few people will register just for the chance to earn badges on your site!  So here it goes back to the same old thing, content.  If the content is good and there is some reason to join (comments, ability to add reviews, competitions etc.) then you can use badges to help to keep people engaged.  On Yet Another Review Site I use them to encourage a little competitions between the editors and the reviewers.  Experience points, badges and public monthly leader boards are all used to help encourage them to do more on the site.

Keep It Interesting, Keep It Real

Another major reason that badges are not always enough on their own is interest.  Whilst people do like to collect things, real work is still real work. The prospect of a badge that says they have written 100 reports will not be as appealing as the one for 10 reports was.  You also have to make sure that there are enough badges.  The worst thing that can happen with a system like that is hitting a point where there is nothing left to collect.

A Dry Well Provides No Engagement

Too much too soon can be a big issue when collecting trophies and badges.  Normally when you register, you will get some kind of badge to get you going.  Then you get one for your first bit of work. Then maybe another for getting a review or a comment. Then you may get one or two more in rapid succession for doing other things.  Soon you have collected five or six in no time at all.  Then it dries up.  The next award is not going to be given too you (if you are told at all what the criteria is) until you have submitted another 20 reviews.  This dry spell could be a killer to any system like this.

Who Cares? Not I

Finally, and this is a pretty big one, not everyone cares about badges and trophies.  I don’t for instance.  When I play games on the Xbox or the PS3, I couldn’t care less that I have got the “Jumped for a million feet and survived” trophy. I want the game to be good.  The same is true of websites or intranets.  Personally, I want good content.  I also want to be guided to other good content (see Gamification: You may already be using it).

Blended Approach

Gamification is all about using the right approaches for your intended audience.  It maybe they are captive, in the case of an Intranet.  You may be trying to entice them to register.  You may have a million visitors but no loyalty.  It is unlikely that any one mechanic / technique will cover your needs.  Experiment, test and gather feedback to work out the most effective use of gamification for you.

I thought I would take a quick look at a couple of gamification techniques you may already be using on your website or blog, but not realise that’s what it is!

Exploration and Engagement

First up, that little box that slides out of the corner of the page and says “RECOMMENDED FOR YOU”. On WordPress there is a great plugin called “The Slide” by SimpleReach. It is there to try and keep you on the site a bit longer – to increase your engagement – and is actually very good at doing it. It shows you another story on the site that is related in some way to the one you have just been reading thus, encouraging you to look a bit deeper into the site. In gamification terms, it would be called Exploration. You are giving the reader a simple signpost to help them explore the site and discover new content. You are influencing their behaviour. On this blog I noticed that rather than people just staying on the one page, they averaged three pages per visit.

Points mean Motivation

Another very simple addition to any blog or site, that I hope you are using if you run a blog, is Disqus. Disqus is a commenting system that allows your users to leave comments on your site, discus articles with other Disqus users and more. It is the more part that is interesting. They have a few plugins that you can add to your site. One is a Top Commenter’s box. If you look at this page, you should see it in the side bar. It shows people, at a glance, who is posting most comments on your pages. From a user standpoint, it puts their activity front and centre on the site, which will hopefully encourage or motivate them to comment more to move up the leader board. This kind of competition is one of the core principles of Gamification. It also shows you their activity on other Disqus forms, which is another reason for them to leave comments with you. The more people who see the comments they are making on other sites, the more chance there is they can spread their own influence.

Pride and ego.

One of the reasons many people comment is to be heard. It is a simple part of human nature to want your opinion heard and respected. Sites like Facebook know this very well hence the creation of the Like button. If you write a comment, you want to know that people have read it and understood it. Sadly, people are lazy. This means you are less likely to have responses to standard comments. However, people will happily click a little thumb up button or a like button to say, “I read your comment and I agree”. The more likes a comment gets, the more pride they will feel in it, thus encouraging them to comment more often. Again, Disqus allows you to do this very easily (no, this is not an advert for Disqus — other good commenting systems are available!).

Epic Meaning and quality validation

Another great feature to add to a site, is the ability to review articles or indeed reviews. On my games review website Yet Another Review Site, before the comments box are two extra bits. The first is a simple scale of 1 to 10 that can be selected, the other is a drop down that says “I agree, I don’t care, I disagree”. When a user selects these they are added to the “User Score” that is displayed with reviews. It also shows how many people agree or disagree with the reviewer You can do this n a simple way with any articles on a blog. Some will allow you to thumbs down as well as thumbs up an article or a comment.

This has two benefits. Obviously, if a writer is getting lots of people agreeing with them and giving them thumbs up, they are going to be encouraged to write again. Conversely, if they are getting lots of people disagree or mark them down they will hopefully go away and consider how to improve. Or give up… The fact is, you want good content on your site. If people are negatively reviewing a writer over and over again, there may be a reason! This will help validate the quality of the content.

These are just a few simple real world examples of Gamification. It doesn’t always need to be complicated. I use all of these methods on my own sites with varying success.

Give them a go, the worst that can happen is you wasted a bit of time learning a new skill!

And that is the real key for me. I write about things that I feel passionate about, well except for this. This is just writing about being passionate.. erm, anyway.

What I don’t do is blog for the express reason of being heard. I am not trying to pretend to be an expert in any of the subjects I talk about. Should you feel I am, that is your call.

I am trying to think if there is a point to this. Not sure there is. This is definitely in the writing to get my thoughts down. I am sure there will be some who will feel I am being a hypocrite by writing this. To them I say, meh. I will wait to read your blog and see what you are.

If I was to have a point it would be this. Write about what you love!

To explain, I will make use of an old legend (deep huh!).

This legend has been given roots in both India and China, but the upshot is the same.  A powerful man offers  (King or Emperor) offers a wise man a reward of their choosing. In china this is for the invention of chess, in India this id for beating the king at a game of chess.  The wise asked for grains of rice as his prize, given in the following manner. Starting with a single grain of rice on the first square of the board, each subsequent square should contain double the amount of the last. Therefore, the second would contain 2 grains, the third 4, the fourth 8 and so on. This seemed simple enough.

The trouble came when he tried to pay. You see by the time he would have filled the twentieth square, he would have needed over one million grains of rice.

Exponential Growth

Let us put that into real context. Start with one evangelist or fan of your product on twitter with a few people in their network. They convert two people into evangelists. These two people then convert another two people each and so on; imagine how far your reach could spread. In just twenty generations of this kind of networking, you can touch over a million people.  Of course the popular term for this is viral.  I prefer just to call it popular.

This cuts the cost of marketing substantially, because once the ball is rolling it is self-sustaining.. This kind of brand loyalty is priceless!

Oh and for those of you interested, the number of grains of rice needed would have been 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 to fill the entire chessboard,  9,223,372,036,854,775,808 on the 64^th square!!

One thing that is often asked when people talk about gamification is why use that and not just offer incentives.

Well.  My first answer is always “but that is gamification”.  That is usually followed with “just very basic and possibly expensive!”.  Offering incentives is normally a financial concern.  If you do X we will pay you Y.  It is certainly a good motivator, money always is, but it does not cover other important aspects of good work. A word you often hear in my gamification blogs is engagement.  Sure, money is a great motivator, but it does not help you engage with the job in hand.

Let them Play

When using other facets of gamification (some of which I talk about in It’s Not All About Trophies), you are not relying solely on incentives and you are certainly not relying on money.  You are using behaviour that is engrained in human nature from birth.  We like to play.  Using gamification to encourage feelings of pride and meaning in your work force will do far more for their productivity than offering them money for doing more.  Doing more is great, but if quantity is at the cost of quality, it is a false economy.

Quality over Quantity

So when you think about incentives, spare a passing thought for gamification.  It may save you money and it will probably improve the quality of work you are getting back from your employees.

Pride: We should take pride in our work

Let’s start with pride as it does tie in well with the achievements idea.  People feel proud of the achievements they have, the feeling of pride can help to drive them to achieve more.  However, there is more to it than that.  If users feel that the work they are doing in some way belongs to them, then they will feel pride in making sure it is as good as possible.  With Giff Gaff (my favourite example, I know) the community runs a lot of the day to day support and marketing for the company.  This feeling of ownership (another game mechanic by the way) is also a matter of pride to the members.  They feel that Giff Gaff is their company and as such they will try even harder to make it more successful.

Epic Meaning: More than just this

Following on nicely from Pride, is Epic Meaning.  In a game, a player will often play through the more boring levels, if they think that there will be some great discovery to be made in the story line.  They will work together as a community to help each other achieve their goals and attain their individual Epic Meanings in the story lines.  The reason that this ties in well with pride, is that one of the many reasons people feel pride in doing things is the thought that they are involved in something bigger than themselves, something epic.  With Giff Gaff this Epic Meaning is a company that is built on the effort of the individuals all working together to make a mobile operator that is better than any other out there.

Blissful Productivity: the useful bit

None of this is of any use unless there is something tangible at the end of it.  So far I have just looked at mechanics that will help to motivate a user to do something.  As humans we tend to have very active minds.  An unusual side effect of this is that very often we will enjoy doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is not all that exciting.  How many millions of people play games like Farmville in the down time.  This is not an exciting game, you are managing numbers basically.  It can be hard work as well.  User based support or answer services make great use of this.  Quora, relies on our need to keep our minds active to answer questions that other users ask.  People will spend hours after their working day, just answering the questions of others.  Their reward for this perceived productivity?  Throw a little pride in owning the answers, a bit of epic meaning as they work towards a greater good and you have the makings of a game!

Behavioural Momentum: just keep working

Finally a look at what I think is one of the strangest game mechanics, but also one of the more useful ones to understand.  When people feel they are being productive in some way, they will continue to do the same task over and over again.  Taking Farmville as our gaming example here, players will spend hours after (or during) work, doing the same mundane task, over and over because they feel that they must be achieving something of use.   Looking at Quora or Yahoo Answers, people keep answering questions with no real reward, just because they have already been answering so may as well continue.  In the end they are producing a useful resource for others.  This can be applied to almost any mundane task; data entry, support desk, coding etc.  On its own though, it may not be enough.

Tying it all together

I have chosen to look at game mechanics that all tie together quite nicely.  There are many, many more out there and I am sure I will talk about them in time. The point with this article was to show that it is not all about trophies and awards.  However, now to torpedo that idea a little.  All of the mentioned game mechanics are great.  They all work, they are all being used.  The thing is, on their own they are not that much use.  They need to be combined to produce actual results.

Whilst trophies and badges on their own will not keep people engaged for all that long, neither will any of the other mechanics.  However, if you combine them all together, you begin to produce something that is much more sustainable.  Use progressive rewards to reinforce feelings of pride.  Use badges to show others how well people are doing – remember they are doing this on your behalf, show the world what they have done. The more productive a person is, the more they should have to be proud of.  As their feeling of pride and ownership is increased, it stands to reason that their productivity will increase.

More soon, until then – Keep Playing the Game!

Ruther Reading

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/25/scvngr-game-mechanics/

http://gamification.org