Understanding gamification

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion is an excit­ing UX trend that has steadi­ly gained momen­tum in the last twen­ty years. Design­ers and busi­ness own­ers are amazed by its abil­i­ty to trans­form activ­i­ties from tedious to com­pelling, boost­ing user engage­ment and sat­is­fac­tion with inge­nious inter­ac­tive elements.

In the sim­plest terms, gam­i­fi­ca­tion involves apply­ing game design ele­ments in non-gam­ing con­texts. It cap­i­talis­es on the human psy­cho­log­i­cal pre­dis­po­si­tion to engage in game­play and lever­ages that to make the user inter­face (UI) more engag­ing, fun, and inter­ac­tive. Exam­ples include scor­ing points, lev­el­ling up, earn­ing badges, and leader­boards, among oth­er things.

Volk­swa­gen’s exper­i­ment with the Piano Stair­case showed just how you can get peo­ple to do some­thing by mak­ing it more fun! The peo­ple in this exper­i­ment used the stair­case 66% more – despite there being an esca­la­tor right next to it.

If your design­er can suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cute gam­i­fi­ca­tion ele­ments on your busi­ness’s web­site, you’ll like­ly be in for a sig­nif­i­cant increase in engage­ment. Let’s dive into the top­ic fur­ther so you can under­stand why and how it works.

The psychology behind gamification

Though we humans like to spend most of our days sit­ting in front of com­put­ers, we’re still ani­mals. There are a set of innate moti­va­tions that dri­ve us, and these are what gam­i­fi­ca­tion relies on to get its results.

Here are four ways gam­i­fi­ca­tion taps into our nat­ur­al instincts and drives:

• Dopamine release: Com­plet­ing tasks and achiev­ing goals in a game releas­es dopamine, a feel-good neu­ro­trans­mit­ter. This cre­ates a sense of plea­sure and sat­is­fac­tion, which encour­ages users to con­tin­ue what­ev­er activ­i­ty they were doing.
•  Reward sys­tem: Human brains are wired to respond to rewards. When users earn rewards such as points, badges, or lev­els in a gam­i­fied sys­tem, it increas­es their moti­va­tion and engagement.
• Sense of progress: Vis­i­ble indi­ca­tors of progress, like lev­el­ling up or com­plet­ing a progress bar, give users a sense of achieve­ment, keep­ing them moti­vat­ed to continue.
• Social influ­ence: Fea­tures like leader­boards or team chal­lenges lever­age social influ­ence and com­pe­ti­tion, encour­ag­ing users to per­form better.

You can refer back to this list when you want to improve your gam­i­fied ele­ments, con­sid­er­ing how they meet (or don’t meet) these key dri­ves. To max­imise your impact, try intro­duc­ing ele­ments that tar­get all four instincts.

Benefits of gamification in UX design

UX design is all about cre­at­ing a user-friend­ly, intu­itive, and engag­ing dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence. You might be think­ing, “I already had my web­site designed by a UX design­er.” Despite what efforts you may have already tak­en to opti­mise your site, gam­i­fi­ca­tion is the next lev­el. It’s the final boss, the cher­ry on top, the pièce de résistance.

If you’re not con­vinced, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing statistics:

• Moti­va­tion for com­plet­ing or win­ning games boosts engage­ment by 48%. 
• 83% of employ­ees feel more moti­vat­ed when their train­ing is gamified.
• Par­tic­i­pants scored 14% high­er in skill-based assess­ments after using gam­i­fied elements.

Evi­dent­ly, gam­i­fi­ca­tion is not just for increas­ing cus­tomer engage­ment but also for train­ing hap­pi­er employ­ees. By mak­ing the ordi­nary extra­or­di­nary, your busi­ness can expect the following:

• Boost­ed user engage­ment and reten­tion by encour­ag­ing repeat­ed interactions.
• Longer user ses­sions due to fos­ter­ing a sense of achieve­ment and satisfaction.
• Greater user loy­al­ty and brand affinity.
• Facil­i­tat­ed learn­ing through increased moti­va­tion and improved ease of use.

As long as gam­i­fi­ca­tion is exe­cut­ed suc­cess­ful­ly, all these ben­e­fits can be achieved. If you want to enhance your UX and make it more engag­ing, reward­ing, and enjoy­able for users, read on as we delve into how you can imple­ment this on your site or app.

Key elements of gamification in UX design

There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ways you can imple­ment gam­i­fied ele­ments, each offer­ing slight­ly dif­fer­ent incen­tives to users.

While set­ting clear and attain­able goals incen­tivis­es user engage­ment ini­tial­ly, reward mech­a­nisms moti­vate users even fur­ther to con­tin­ue participation.

Ele­ments that spark com­pet­i­tive or col­lab­o­ra­tive spir­its are effec­tive at dri­ving engage­ment for some, while oth­ers will be moti­vat­ed by vis­i­ble indi­ca­tions of progress.

So, what exact­ly are these gam­i­fied ele­ments? Here are a few exam­ples for you to ponder:

• Badges
• Stick­ers
• Dead­lines or countdowns
• Goals and objectives
• Avatars
• Rewards such as points and lev­els, per­haps result­ing in a free gift
• Com­pe­ti­tions
• Leader­boards
• Progress bars
• Inter­nal currency

Now that you know the actu­al fea­tures of gam­i­fi­ca­tion, what are the con­texts for their use?

8 ways businesses can use gamification

All kinds of busi­ness­es can use gam­i­fi­ca­tion, as it has such a wide range of appli­ca­tions. Here are 8 ways gam­i­fi­ca­tion can be implemented:

1. Customer engagement

Busi­ness­es can use gam­i­fi­ca­tion to increase cus­tomer engage­ment on their web­sites, mobile apps, and social media plat­forms. This could involve com­pe­ti­tions, quizzes, points sys­tems, and reward programs.

2. Employee training

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion can be used in cor­po­rate train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment pro­grams, mak­ing learn­ing new skills or process­es more enjoy­able and improv­ing knowl­edge retention.

For exam­ple, teach­ing the impor­tance of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty could involve gam­i­fied sim­u­la­tions of phish­ing attempts or oth­er cyber threats.

3. Recruitment

Some busi­ness­es use gam­i­fied assess­ments in their hir­ing process to assess skills, fit, and knowl­edge in an engag­ing way.

4. Productivity and performance

Gam­i­fied pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tools can encour­age employ­ees to com­plete tasks in a time­ly man­ner, track their per­for­mance, and even com­pete with co-work­ers in a friend­ly way.

You could even use gam­i­fi­ca­tion in project man­age­ment soft­ware to moti­vate teams, encour­age col­lab­o­ra­tion, and help to track and visu­alise project progress.

5. Market research

Busi­ness­es can use gam­i­fied sur­veys or ques­tion­naires to make the process of pro­vid­ing feed­back or com­plet­ing sur­veys more enjoy­able, which can increase response rates and give com­pa­nies valu­able insights.

6. Health and wellness programs

Many com­pa­nies encour­age employ­ees to main­tain their phys­i­cal health through gam­i­fied fit­ness chal­lenges, such as step-count com­pe­ti­tions or achiev­ing cer­tain health goals.

7. Marketing and sales

Brands can use gam­i­fi­ca­tion in their mar­ket­ing and sales strate­gies to engage cus­tomers, such as reward­ing points for pur­chas­es that can be redeemed lat­er or run­ning gam­i­fied cam­paigns that encour­age shar­ing on social media.

8. Customer loyalty programs

A loy­al­ty pro­gram can be gam­i­fied to incen­tivise repeat pur­chas­es or oth­er actions that ben­e­fit the busi­ness. For instance, cus­tomers could earn points for each pur­chase, which could be redeemed for dis­counts or spe­cial perks.

Remem­ber, the goal of gam­i­fi­ca­tion is to engage users and make process­es more enjoy­able, dri­ving high­er engage­ment and results. The best gam­i­fi­ca­tion strate­gies are those that tru­ly under­stand the user and offer a mean­ing­ful and reward­ing experience.

So, how can you exe­cute your gam­i­fi­ca­tion plans in the best way?

Top tips for implementing gamification

To ensure you don’t make real­ly com­mon mis­takes and get the best from your efforts, we’ve com­piled a list of do’s and don’ts. Here’s what you need to know:

Do’s:

1. Under­stand your audience

Before you can effec­tive­ly gam­i­fy, you need to under­stand who you’re gam­i­fy­ing for. What moti­vates your users? What are their needs, desires, and pref­er­ences? Under­stand­ing your audi­ence will help you cre­ate a gam­i­fi­ca­tion strat­e­gy that res­onates with them.

2. Define clear goals

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion should not be imple­ment­ed with­out a clear pur­pose. What do you want to achieve? Increase user engage­ment? Improve employ­ee pro­duc­tiv­i­ty? Increase sales? Hav­ing clear goals can guide your strategy.

3. Design a bal­anced system

Your gam­i­fied ele­ments should be bal­anced and fair, encour­ag­ing both new and long-time users. Rewards should be attain­able but still require effort to main­tain user inter­est and motivation.

4. Keep it simple

The rules of your gam­i­fied sys­tem should be easy to under­stand. If it’s too com­pli­cat­ed, users might lose interest.

5. Cre­ate a sense of progress

Progress bars, lev­els, badges, and leader­boards can all give a sense of achieve­ment and moti­vate users to con­tin­ue interacting.

6. Iter­ate and improve

Mon­i­tor your gam­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem close­ly, gath­er feed­back, and don’t be afraid to tweak or change things as necessary.

Don’ts:

1. Don’t over-incentivise

While rewards can moti­vate users, if they’re giv­en out too eas­i­ly or too fre­quent­ly, they can lose their val­ue. Strike a bal­ance between effort and reward.

2. Don’t for­get the user experience

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion should enhance the user expe­ri­ence, not detract from it. Ensure that it does­n’t inter­fere with the basic func­tion­al­i­ty of your web­site or app.

3. Don’t force competition

Not every­one is moti­vat­ed by com­pe­ti­tion. While leader­boards and rank­ing sys­tems can moti­vate some users, oth­ers may pre­fer col­lab­o­ra­tive or solo achievements.

4. Don’t ignore feedback

User feed­back is cru­cial in mak­ing your gam­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem effec­tive. Make sure you lis­ten to your users, under­stand their pain points, and make changes if needed.

5. Don’t imple­ment gam­i­fi­ca­tion just for the sake of it

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion is a tool to achieve cer­tain objec­tives, not a cure-all-solu­tion. If it does­n’t fit nat­u­ral­ly with­in your exist­ing sys­tem or strat­e­gy, it may not be the right solu­tion for your business.

Examples of gamification

To fur­ther inspire your upcom­ing project, you might like to con­sid­er how the fol­low­ing busi­ness­es have used gamification:

Duolingo

This lan­guage-learn­ing plat­form utilis­es gam­i­fi­ca­tion bril­liant­ly. It moti­vates users by reward­ing them with points for com­plet­ing lessons and main­tain­ing streaks. It also uses a leader­board for added competition.

LinkedIn

The pro­fes­sion­al net­work­ing site uses gam­i­fi­ca­tion to encour­age users to com­plete their pro­files. As you add more infor­ma­tion, a progress bar fills up, giv­ing users a visu­al sign of their “com­ple­tion lev­el” and moti­vat­ing them to pro­vide fur­ther details.

Starbucks

Star­bucks has inte­grat­ed gam­i­fi­ca­tion into their Star­bucks Rewards pro­gram. Through their mobile app, cus­tomers can earn “Stars” for each pur­chase, which can then be redeemed for free drinks and food. This gam­i­fied loy­al­ty pro­gram not only boosts cus­tomer engage­ment but also pro­motes repeat busi­ness, encour­ag­ing reg­u­lar use of the app and fre­quent vis­its to their stores.

Nike Run Club

This fit­ness app employs gam­i­fi­ca­tion ele­ments such as achieve­ments, badges, and progress track­ing, which moti­vate users to main­tain and improve their fit­ness lev­els. Users can also join week­ly or month­ly chal­lenges to com­pete against them­selves or others.

Google Maps

Google incor­po­rat­ed gam­i­fi­ca­tion in its Local Guides pro­gram. Users can earn points by leav­ing reviews, adding pho­tos, answer­ing ques­tions, or updat­ing infor­ma­tion, encour­ag­ing engage­ment, and increas­ing the accu­ra­cy and rich­ness of the data on Google Maps.

Users are encour­aged to repeat these actions by the badges they’re award­ed – e.g., “Fact Find­er” for sug­gest­ing approved edits and “Trail­blaz­er” for being the first user to add infor­ma­tion or pho­tos for a location.

Audible

Ama­zon’s audio­book ser­vice, Audi­ble, offers a cou­ple of gam­i­fied ele­ments, includ­ing “Lis­ten­ing Lev­els” and badges. For exam­ple, late-night lis­ten­ers are award­ed “Night Owl”. These gam­i­fied ele­ments add an engag­ing, com­pet­i­tive aspect to the lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence, encour­ag­ing con­sis­tent usage and explo­ration of more content.

Future of gamification

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion has come a long way since Nick Pelling coined the term in 2002. Even so, it could evolve even fur­ther in just a few years.

With devel­op­ments in AI accel­er­at­ing far faster than any­one had antic­i­pat­ed, it makes us won­der what the future has in store for oth­er dig­i­tal trends. Are there upcom­ing tech­nolo­gies that could influ­ence how gam­i­fi­ca­tion is used?

Here are our predictions:

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion will become more immersive

As aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) and vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) con­tin­ue to devel­op, they’re like­ly to become more real­is­tic and main­stream. So much so gam­i­fied ele­ments could begin to use AR and VR to pro­vide high­ly immer­sive expe­ri­ences for users.

Games will be more personalised

With arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) grow­ing in abil­i­ty month on month, we won’t be sur­prised when it shows its face in gam­i­fi­ca­tion. AI could be used to per­son­alise gam­i­fied expe­ri­ences based on indi­vid­ual user behav­iour, pref­er­ences, and past inter­ac­tions, result­ing in a high­ly per­son­alised and engag­ing final product.

Our lives will become more gamified

The Inter­net of Things (IoT) still has a lot of room for gam­i­fi­ca­tion. As more and more of the devices we use every day become inter­net-enabled, there are more oppor­tu­ni­ties for gam­i­fied expe­ri­ences. For instance, our fit­ness track­ers could turn dai­ly step counts into a game, and our smart home ther­mostats could gam­i­fy ener­gy-sav­ing practices.

With all these pos­si­bil­i­ties, we say be on the look­out for emerg­ing trends in gam­i­fi­ca­tion because some of them might be per­fect for your business!