gamification debate at ny tech ux

Marc ResnickBentley University, ProfessorUsability Solutions, Founder

mresnick@bentley.edu@PerformSol305-443-3765

humanfactors.blogspot.com

We have gone gamification crazy

But most implementations don’t seem to know what they are doing !

“Gartner Says by 2014, 80% of

Current Gamified Applications Will Fail to

Meet Business Objectives Primarily Due to Poor Design”

Just like a great chef can turn basic ingredients into a masterpiece

A bad chef can turn them into a trip to the emergency room

But why do we need to be chefs?

Let’s take just one ingredient . . .

Can’t we motivate everyone with pointsification . . .

Autonomy

Mastery Relatedness

Do we need to consider a few motivational dimensions . . .

Or do we need a whole language of motivation to cover it all?

Relatedness• one to one bonding with a valued

colleague• belonging to the in-group • collaboration with others towards

a common goal• competition with another to show

superiority• nurturing, family, and mentorship• (friends list)

Mastery• successes heralded in song • external validation through public

awareness of your success• internal validation because you

know of your success• (trophies and leaderboards)

Accumulation• collection of sets• (virtual goods)

Competence• physical and mental health• stability, tranquility, and absence of

anxiety• fairness and justice• idealism and honor• (badges, levels, points)

Self-expression• design part of the game world used

by others• design part of the world used by

yourself• design part of the world used by

yourself and in-group

Disruption• fight the power• white hat hacking• (scam the fools)

Let’s break motivation down into its basic components

But each user is motivated by adifferent set of motivators and in different proportions

Community

Competence

Relatedness

Status

Disruption

Mastery

Competition

Strava Cyclist Gamified Social Network

Relatedness• uses can follow anyone (like TW)• users can look for skill-matched

partners to bike with• users can compete within selected

friend group• users can join teams for aggregate

scoring• users can link to mentors for advice• there is an extensively used chat for

collaborative and trash talking• there is a strong member affinity

Mastery• time leaderboards on set segments

are listed, overall and by demo• users can list personal records

Competence• quantified self features

demonstrate extreme fitness• users can link their HR to measure

their “suffer” score• users can compete anonymously• there is an honor code to reduce

cheatingSelf-expression• users’ newly discovered routes can

be added• users have reasonably rich profiles

Disruption• groups draft one rider to jump a

time record• users can log illegal trails for others

to follow

Open Source SoftwareRelatedness• communicating with specific leading

and noted developers• belonging to the open-source

community in-group • working with other developers on

new modules• mentoring new developers as they

onboard to the community

Mastery• status as an expert developer• internal confidence emanating from

the acceptance of code contributions

Extrinsic value• paid bonuses from employer for

contributing• career advancement based on part

on contributions to code development

Competence• being a valued member of the

open source community• having personal contributions

added to the next software build• subscribing to the open source

honor code

Self-expression• expressing one’s software

development style in the code

Disruption• create free software that

competes with established corporate systems

And if we do this with:• X motivations• X player profiles• X processes to cover• X usage scenarios• X time frames

• X learning curves• X feedback mechanisms• X reward types• X customization models• X hardware and software

constraints

We get 6,423,678,124,013 possible combinations (approximately)

businessobjectives

gameelement

gamemechanic UI brain

mechanicST

behaviorgame

dynamicLT

behavior

There is a way, if you know the fundamentals

userprofiles

For Group Discussion

Strengths of Gamification• Long term engagement• Build intrinsic motivation• Focusing users on key

outcomes• White hat hackgamers

Obstacles to Gamification• Short term thinking• Contestification• Distracting users with points

and badges• Disruptors and game grinders