Combining the Gamification User Journey, Action / Feedback Loops and the Spiral to Mastery

Ok, so a pretty long title there, but stay with me.

I have been trying out making a couple of videos to augment the blog a little. The first one was to introduce a new version of my activity loops idea from a few years ago. The second was to talk about how that fits together with the new Gamification User Journey and a new-ish idea around spirals and mastery… you need to watch the video to get more about that one!

Activity / Feedback Loops

First off, can anyone think of a nice little name for this, something catchy? Also, can anyone make a nicer looking version (Bernardo, I’m looking at you dude!!).

Action Feedback Loop 500x375 Combining the Gamification User Journey Action Feedback Loops and the Spiral to Mastery
The Action / Feedback Loop

The loops starts with a call to action. With any luck, the user then takes the desired action. Next, the system provides some form of feedback; a reward, pat on the back, random reward, progress bar update etc. The action / feedback loop continues until a state change is needed in the system. This could be something like a change in difficulty, a power up or some other change that alters the users experience. After that the system offers the user some feedback and either goes straight back into the action / feedback loop or it may offer a new call to action first.

The video below explains this in a little more detail.

Mastery Spiral

This was an odd idea I had whilst recording the next video. Consider the user journey as a spiral. In the center, the user discovers the system. As they spiral out from the center they go through on-boarding, immersion and mastery. After mastery, they may finish or they can go on to start a new spiral as part of replay.

Spiral to Mastery 500x375 Combining the Gamification User Journey Action Feedback Loops and the Spiral to Mastery
Spiral to Mastery

Watch the video and leave me some comments 😀

 

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4 thoughts on “Combining the Gamification User Journey, Action / Feedback Loops and the Spiral to Mastery”

  1. For some reason, this spiral reminded me of the Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson%27s_stages_of_psychosocial_development#Ninth_stage).
    I see, it is quite natural that masters may improve they mastery by either enlargening it or deepening it if they have opportunity to do it. And it may be that these opportunities needs even to be discovered by the master. One message in Erikson’s theory is that at some point of your life you look back too see and assess their accomplishments. In Erikson’s theory this is in the end of your life but it don’t need to be. It could be the point when you feel that you can’t uphold your mastery as well as you liked to, for example (you see the “end” coming). What happens after that depends on what do you think life can still offer for you: it may be the end or starting something new.

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  2. Oh I agree, more an off the cuff illustration. If you look at my actual journey, they are either at the end state or go back to a modified immersion phase. But the spiral was a nice visual to illustrate that mastery can be a never ending series of connected journeys.

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  3. Ha! Enjoyed the music quite a bit :). Nice video. Just one comment on the spirals, it doesn’t seem entirely right that once in mastery, you get back into discovery. In some other theories around it seems like mastery is an “end-state” and the user enjoys just being there, but I never feel it is quite enough. There should be a way to encapsulate this situation… Will keep thinking about it, but looking forward to your thoughts as well!

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