独家优惠奖金 100% 高达 1 BTC + 180 免费旋转

The Reasons Why Gamification Works

It seems that in the past few years every company that has an app or is looking into including one into their business strategy has only one word in mind — gamification.

In this article, I will go through some of the benefits of gamification, how we can use it to engage our customers and increase retention and finally give you a few good examples of apps that are using it.

Now, let’s start with the basics — what is gamification? It is a common term that gained in popularity in 2010, and it refers to applying fun and engaging elements found in games to non-leisure contexts. The goal is to entice users to complete specific tasks, with the purpose of increasing user retention within your product or service.

Before we dive into the subject, there is one core principle to explain — the psychological drive behind games.

Games satisfy a basic need for self-fulfilment, they motivate us intrinsically. Games can generate the flow effect in their participants, which is the feeling of full immersion and involvement in an activity and it is this particular effect we are interested in applying to our apps.

In addition, we, humans need to have goals, we want to feel valued, we are competitive and have a need for dominance and fame — this is where gamification comes in.

With gamification, we can trick ourselves into being more productive and having fun while completing challenges. 🎖

Gamification can be an easy way of improving an already existing app since it encourages users to complete tasks that are boring, uninteresting or repetitive and to keep them engaged. Ultimately, the goal is to get them to come back and use your app. This makes for a great option when you want to mix acquisition with retention and ensure sustainable growth.

There is also an “evil” side to gamification worth mentioning, where some companies using it actually try to tap into a hybrid of gambling addiction and video game addiction in order to increase profit, using the most useful aspects of the two and applying them to their own apps to keep users coming back for more.

There is a whole host of gamification elements in use today. Most are so common that we really don’t see them for what they really are and go by unnoticed as gaming aspects.

The most obvious are the likes, that feed into the user’s vanity, sense of accomplishment, importance and competitiveness. But there are also the progress bars that keep us completing tasks until we hit that 100% (our brains are hardwired to desire the feeling of progress).

Other examples are levels, badges, challenges, achievements and leaderboards, with the last mentioned being a particularly effective game mechanic where you rank users based on criteria influenced by their behavior and a highly effective method of motivating users through social comparison and competition amongst peers.

Of course, the goal here is not to cram as many of these elements in as possible. Choosing the right elements that enhance the overall experience will make all the difference between a success and a flop.

So now that we covered the benefits and the basic elements, it’s time to get into the specific how-to’s of creating a habit-forming app.

Here you can use progress bars, show them the badges they have yet to receive, achievements to get or challenges to complete. This tactic works because our brains have an innate desire to complete what is still unfinished. Incompleteness causes tension and stress so they will keep a task in their memory until it is completed — this is also a good tactic if you are interested in increasing your brand awareness!

The reward depends on the time and effort invested. It needs to be something that the user will find valuable and satisfying, as their motivation increases when they know they will get something in return for their time and effort.

Social sharing is a very effective tool for increasing competitiveness among the current user base and for pulling in new users.

Boost retention by giving users quick wins early on. Give them a reward early on, but make sure it is not meaningless like “Here is your reward for installing our app!”.

Easy is boring and a challenge makes things exciting. Making the tasks repetitive and boring will cause the user to go into an automated state, and it is safe to say that they will stop using the app soon after. Increasing the difficulty of reaching the goal slightly will add an important aspect, keeping your user on their toes and giving them a sense of proudness for their accomplishment when they reach their goal. 🏆

Keep your users in the Flow — the challenge needs to be equal to their current capabilities. Start small and build up on challenges, but don’t make them too easy!

Give them a freedom of choice and never force anything on them.

Yet, add a sense of urgency — because users need to feel urged, meaning they need to feel that they have to act right now! You can use notifications to remind them of expiring tasks or offer one-time only achievements and challenges.

Your users have to feel optimistic about being able to finish their goal. As an example, this you do by setting the users in the middle of the leaderboards, letting them create or join teams, setting up leaderboards just for friends or by creating separate leaderboards where they can transition between each other based on their activity level.

Sometimes using competitiveness is not the way to go, in these cases, a much better strategy is to use collaboration. Have users work together towards a certain goal (making it more achievable and making them feel a part of something bigger).

This tactic is useful when you have tasks that are aiming towards the greater good. For example, saving the environment or improving the community.

Here are some common pitfalls to avoid when considering gamification.

Rewards are the most common element of gamification where things go wrong. 🏅

Badges, stars, trophies and even physical rewards can all be used to reward the user, make them feel accomplished and give them a sensation of a win. But before we decide which to use we need to know our target. What motivates them? What will make them want to come back for more?

The question of “What does the user consider valuable?” is very much psychological and ties in with our core drives. Financial rewards, status, recognition, entertainment, doing something good for the community or planet can all be regarded as currency in this case.

And once we have this figured out, the next step is to find the balance between the value of this currency and the amount of labor put in to get it.

Badges are the one reward being abused the most. They have a high risk of being arbitrary, making them less effective. Just imagine a scenario where the user is offered a badge if it takes the bus on an early Saturday morning. It’s more of a something to avoid rather than something you would look forward to, right? Similarly, getting a badge for just opening an app could have a similar effect, leaving the user confused and not caring.

The following are a few nice examples of apps that use gamification so you could get a feel of how it is used in practice.

One of them are leaderboards for different time frames that display the top runners for bragging rights. This adds a level of competition to your daily run that can keep you motivated and give a sense of accomplishment.

Nike+ Run Club expanded beyond being a simple running app into growing a community of people that push each other to live healthier lifestyles. It is the perfect example of how creating a gamified app can increase brand awareness and loyalty and lead to a controlling share of the market.

Its clean and elegant user interface makes complex data easy to understand by avoiding clutter and data overload. Morningscore’s fun space theme includes a gamified feature called “Missions.” The users get mission suggestions and by completing them increase their Morningscore and improve their website. It sets a positive spin on an improvements list and presents the tasks as something to strive for instead of something that you are lacking.

The “save-then-spend” mentality makes it easier to handle your money intelligently and gain interest on your saving instead of losing money on credit card interest. Additionally, SmartyPig uses gamification which makes goals seem more attainable. Each goal has a progress bar that makes it easier for the user to keep track of the saving and stay motivated.

Everyone needs a bit of motivation when it comes to doing their chores and Epic Win does a nice job with this by turning tedious tasks into a game.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and may you have luck in your gamification endeavors. Feel free to join the discussion in the comments, and share this article to the world. 👏

Add a comment

What is your view?

Send

Related posts:

Fashion Buyer.

Fashion tells our story. It gives us a creative outlet where we are able to express ourselves through our clothes in order to contribute to an extension of who we are. It’s a magical, extravagant…

goals

Bible study resource for teens and young adults: written by a Christian psychologist, “All I’m Created to Be set Free!” uses Biblical text and psychological principles to promote spiritual growth…

Polly and Cliff

Polly dealt with the news of her husband’s illness as she had dealt with most things that threatened to blow her life off course. She did not think of her ship sinking. Just that the voyage had…