Just because you can gamify something doesn’t mean you should!
I wrote about gamification yesterday, after reading a paper that said world games could improve wellbeing, and I wanted to follow up by reminding ourselves:
Starting with the mechanics first - meaning your team just copies badges or streaks can be a great mistake and it can hurt your users and lead to unintended consequences.
Some apps today are over gamified and what they may be causing is addiction to a product and not behavior change or progress.
It is important to remind yourself that there are 2 layers when you are designing a product.
Layer 1: The engagement you need in a product Layer 2: The behavior you want someone to achieve outside your product
I think we may end up forgetting that Layer 2 exists and all we care about is making the product so addictive that people are hooked to the product and never actually make progress in achieving something outside the product.
I am all for gamification, but it needs a systematic and evidence based approach and it should include more than just the mechanics that are easy to learn, but hard to implement in the right way.
Furthermore, from an organizations perspective, when you don't implement it properly you end up wasting money, resources and time and gamification is seen as a failure by leadership.
Gamification has to start with understanding the behavior, psychology and the needs outside of your product first - then gamification mechanics can assist assist a product that is ultimately helping someone achieve change - outside that product.
Once you understand this, then you can think about what to implement and avoid unintended consequences or poor business outcomes.
There are many frameworks out there for gamification, but a nice and easy resource to get started and go beyond points and badges can be:
Actionable Gamification by Yu-kai Chou
Included is the Octalysis Framework with its 8 Core Drivers of Gamification:
1. Meaning 2.Empowerment 3.Social Influence 4.Unpredictability 5.Avoidance 6.Scarcity 7.Ownership 8.Accomplishment
What other gamification frameworks do you use?