Top posts of 2014

20140505 144722 Top posts of 2014

Well, Happy New Year everyone. 2014 was a good year for gamification, but 2015 is where we will come of age I feel. Below are a couple of top 10’s for my blog. The first is based on page views for blogs just posted in 2014. The second is based on comments for blogs in that year and the final is page views for all content on the site.

It looks like defining gamification was a big thing in 2014!!

Page Views for 2014 posts

1) Defining gamification – what do people really think?

Posted on April 16, 2014As many of you know, I recently took exception to a particular definition of gamification that was doing the rounds. However, the positive effect was to make me think about what it really means and also started to make me wonder what other people think of it.  So, I asked them – I did a… More… Read More ...

My 3 main focuses for rewards and feedback

RIM My 3 main focuses for rewards and feedback

One of the key things that I consider when looking at anything in gamification is how feedback is going to be handled. For me, feedback is anything that gives a user some understanding of progress and achievement. This can be something as simple as a message that says “You have completed the survey”, to a full virtual economy working with points, badges, levels, leaderboards, trading, prizes etc! They are all just there to keep the user informed.

I feel there are three important aspects that need to be considered when designing feedback and rewards for any system though. It should be – cue another mnemonic – RIM…..! Read More ...

Forget loyalty, how about liking?

3 steps Forget loyalty how about liking

Over the last few months I have seen more and more people in gamification changing their messaging. Rather than speaking about gamification, they have started to speak about loyalty.

It makes sense, with gamification you are trying to guide people and engage them with your products, services or whatever – it does seem to follow that you would be aiming for their loyalty as well. However, I see an issue here and it may just be a definition thing, but it still got me thinking.

I have spoken about loyalty a few times and it always comes across to me that it can be looked at as: Read More ...

2 major lessons Apple has just taught us about loyalty

U2 itunes 2 major lessons Apple has just taught us about loyalty

Another 6 months – another set of Apple tech announcements and pending products. Bigger phones, better software and a Watch (which I will probably speak about soon enough around what this could mean to personal gamification!).

They also gave every iTunes user a gift.

How awesome is that! Well, as it turns out not very. Apple pushed the new U2 album into everyone’s iTunes account forgetting a couple of really important things about people.

  1. They like to have a choice.
  2. They like to have things that are relevant to them.

As nice as they thought they were being, they were actually breaking the trust of their customers – pushing content on them without asking if it was ok first. Read More ...

Gamification: Pervasive User Centric Design

Pervasive User Centric Design Gamification Pervasive User Centric Design

A spelling mistake, auto-correct and a lack of concentration led me to researching totally the wrong thing recently.  I was looking into a blog on Persuasive design, but ended up looking at articles on Pervasive design by mistake! It triggered some ideas and things I had been thinking about a while back, so I ran with it and am glad I did.

A few years ago, I remember reading about Pervasive Games. The difference between a pervasive game and a “normal” game is that the pervasive game breaks the magic circle and integrates in some way with the players real life and world. You may remember I wrote about the magic circle a while back. This is essentially the barrier between the virtual world and the real world that most games don’t tend to cross. Read More ...