andrzej marczewski

Gamification: Why Aren’t Badges Enough?

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Gamification Gamification Why Aren 8217 t Badges Enough

Recently I wrote a piece about the fact there was more to gamification than just trophies, but I never really explained why. A few people have asked, so I thought I would have a go at explaining.

Just Because You Build It, Doesn’t Mean They Will Come

The first reason is simple, but one that I never really thought of until I started using them on my site. For trophies and the like to actually start to work – you need the people you wish to keep engaged to actually be registered with you. When you are in a company and are using it on an intranet, that is simple, as they all have to be registered to use it. However, when you are trying to use it on your website or blog, it is not quite the same. Very few people will register just for the chance to earn badges on your site! So here it goes back to the same old thing, content. If the content is good and there is some reason to join (comments, ability to add reviews, competitions etc.) then you can use badges to help to keep people engaged. On Yet Another Review Site I use them to encourage a little competitions between the editors and the reviewers. Experience points, badges and public monthly leader boards are all used to help encourage them to do more on the site.

Keep It Interesting, Keep It Real

Another major reason that badges are not always enough on their own is interest. Whilst people do like to collect things, real work is still real work. The prospect of a badge that says they have written 100 reports will not be as appealing as the one for 10 reports was. You also have to make sure that there are enough badges. The worst thing that can happen with a system like that is hitting a point where there is nothing left to collect.

A Dry Well Provides No Engagement

Too much too soon can be a big issue when collecting trophies and badges. Normally when you register, you will get some kind of badge to get you going. Then you get one for your first bit of work. Then maybe another for getting a review or a comment. Then you may get one or two more in rapid succession for doing other things. Soon you have collected five or six in no time at all. Then it dries up. The next award is not going to be given too you (if you are told at all what the criteria is) until you have submitted another 20 reviews. This dry spell could be a killer to any system like this.

Who Cares? Not I

Finally, and this is a pretty big one, not everyone cares about badges and trophies. I don’t for instance. When I play games on the Xbox or the PS3, I couldn’t care less that I have got the “Jumped for a million feet and survived” trophy. I want the game to be good. The same is true of websites or intranets. Personally, I want good content. I also want to be guided to other good content (see Gamification: You may already be using it).

Blended Approach

Gamification is all about using the right approaches for your intended audience. It maybe they are captive, in the case of an Intranet. You may be trying to entice them to register. You may have a million visitors but no loyalty. It is unlikely that any one mechanic / technique will cover your needs. Experiment, test and gather feedback to work out the most effective use of gamification for you.

Gamification: You May Already Be Using It!

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Right, so back to gamification.

I thought I would take a quick look at a couple of gamification techniques you may already be using on your website or blog, but not realise that’s what it is!

Exploration and Engagement

First up, that little box that slides out of the corner of the page and says “RECOMMENDED FOR YOU”. On WordPress there is a great plugin called “The Slide” by SimpleReach. It is there to try and keep you on the site a bit longer – to increase your engagement – and is actually very good at doing it. It shows you another story on the site that is related in some way to the one you have just been reading thus, encouraging you to look a bit deeper into the site. In gamification terms, it would be called Exploration. You are giving the reader a simple signpost to help them explore the site and discover new content. You are influencing their behaviour. On this blog I noticed that rather than people just staying on the one page, they averaged three pages per visit.

Points mean Motivation

Another very simple addition to any blog or site, that I hope you are using if you run a blog, is Disqus. Disqus is a commenting system that allows your users to leave comments on your site, discus articles with other Disqus users and more. It is the more part that is interesting. They have a few plugins that you can add to your site. One is a Top Commenter’s box. If you look at this page, you should see it in the side bar. It shows people, at a glance, who is posting most comments on your pages. From a user standpoint, it puts their activity front and centre on the site, which will hopefully encourage or motivate them to comment more to move up the leader board. This kind of competition is one of the core principles of Gamification. It also shows you their activity on other Disqus forms, which is another reason for them to leave comments with you. The more people who see the comments they are making on other sites, the more chance there is they can spread their own influence.

Pride and ego.

One of the reasons many people comment is to be heard. It is a simple part of human nature to want your opinion heard and respected. Sites like Facebook know this very well hence the creation of the Like button. If you write a comment, you want to know that people have read it and understood it. Sadly, people are lazy. This means you are less likely to have responses to standard comments. However, people will happily click a little thumb up button or a like button to say, “I read your comment and I agree”. The more likes a comment gets, the more pride they will feel in it, thus encouraging them to comment more often. Again, Disqus allows you to do this very easily (no, this is not an advert for Disqus — other good commenting systems are available!).

Epic Meaning and quality validation

Another great feature to add to a site, is the ability to review articles or indeed reviews. On my games review website Yet Another Review Site, before the comments box are two extra bits. The first is a simple scale of 1 to 10 that can be selected, the other is a drop down that says “I agree, I don’t care, I disagree”. When a user selects these they are added to the “User Score” that is displayed with reviews. It also shows how many people agree or disagree with the reviewer You can do this n a simple way with any articles on a blog. Some will allow you to thumbs down as well as thumbs up an article or a comment.

This has two benefits. Obviously, if a writer is getting lots of people agreeing with them and giving them thumbs up, they are going to be encouraged to write again. Conversely, if they are getting lots of people disagree or mark them down they will hopefully go away and consider how to improve. Or give up… The fact is, you want good content on your site. If people are negatively reviewing a writer over and over again, there may be a reason! This will help validate the quality of the content.

These are just a few simple real world examples of Gamification. It doesn’t always need to be complicated. I use all of these methods on my own sites with varying success.

Give them a go, the worst that can happen is you wasted a bit of time learning a new skill!

Why use Gamification and not just Incentives?

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It’s not just about money

One thing that is often asked when people talk about gamification is why use that and not just offer incentives.

Well. My first answer is always “but that is gamification”. That is usually followed with “just very basic and possibly expensive!”. Offering incentives is normally a financial concern. If you do X we will pay you Y. It is certainly a good motivator, money always is, but it does not cover other important aspects of good work. A word you often hear in my gamification blogs is engagement. Sure, money is a great motivator, but it does not help you engage with the job in hand.

Let them Play

When using other facets of gamification (some of which I talk about in It’s Not All About Trophies), you are not relying solely on incentives and you are certainly not relying on money. You are using behaviour that is engrained in human nature from birth. We like to play. Using gamification to encourage feelings of pride and meaning in your work force will do far more for their productivity than offering them money for doing more. Doing more is great, but if quantity is at the cost of quality, it is a false economy.

Quality over Quantity

So when you think about incentives, spare a passing thought for gamification. It may save you money and it will probably improve the quality of work you are getting back from your employees.

Super Nanny and the Gamification of a Generation

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Whilst I continue my quest to write a bit more about the less obvious dynamics and mechanics of Gamification, a little thought occurred.

In 2004 a lovely lady by the name of Jo Frost appeared on our televisions in a program called Super Nanny. For those who didn’t see it (it is still showing in the US I think), basically Miss Frost would go into a family who had “problem” children and work out how best to bring them back under control. Of course this being the Naughties, smacking is a big no no, so she introduced the world to two concepts. The Reward Chart and the Naughty Step. Whilst these were not new ideas, it was the first time many people had seen them.

The naughty step is a simple technique. Bad behaviour resulted in a time out on the naughty step. It is the reward chart that got me thinking.

Good behaviour is rewarded with a sticker on a chart. Stickers can be earned for achieving certain things; tidying your room, being polite, doing your homework etc. Sound familiar?

Jo Frost had introduced the world a large to the Gamification of discipline. However, how does this relate to businesses or anything else for that matter? Glad you asked.

I myself am a parent and the picture attached is my daughters reward chart. I am essentialy teaching her that good behaviour earns rewards. Fill a row, get a small treat. Fill the chart get a big treat. She can have one black cross per line. A simple mechanic, but effective. The thing is, she will grow up expecting a similar system in everything. And why not?

This is why Gamification is going to become more and more important. As children learn that behaviour is directly related to reward, they will come to expect that success is linked to reward. With Gamification you can use this to your advantage to get smaller, less interesting tasks achieved. You can use to guide and influence the behaviour of users and clients. As simple as it sounds it is important. As I keep saying, gamification is not all about rewards and leader boards and I really am working on an article that covers more. however this is all just one more reason to look into gamification now rather than later.

Thanks to Super Nanny we are breeding a generation of gamified workers.

 

The Gamification of Life

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Okay, okay, I know this blog is getting a bit Gamification heavy AND I also promised the next post would be a very serious one that went into more detail about non reward like gamification, but it isn’t – yet – so there.

The reason for this blog? Well, it is currently about 3am and I have just changed my daughters nappy whilst trying to feed her. I set myself the challenge to change her, in her Moses basket, whilst feeding her. I basically gamified the process to make it more entertaining to my sleep deprived brain. However, it got me to thinking. Whenever people talk about gamification, it is normally related to some kind of technology based solution. Make it into a video game, add rewards and achievements to their online profile, that sort of thing.

of course, real life can be gamified just as easily. How many times have you set yourself a challenge like “I will finish this report before I have that 20th cup of coffee” or “If I can get to the end of the week without any junk food, I will have a bar of chocolate”. Weight watchers have been doing this for years without the need for technology. I wrote a while back that we all use gamification from birth, it is how we learn. Well, why stop. A task is boring if there is no reward.

Gamifiy your day by rewarding yourself in little ways. Challenge yourself to follow three interesting people on twitter. Give yourself the task of helping at least two people on you internal social network. All of the game mechanics and dynamics that we speak about in gamification can be used in day to day life. Just in those three examples I use Discovery, pride and productivity.

Think about how you use these things in day to day life. If you do it, you can bet others are doing it. Now think about how you may be able to use that information. Consider that a project is not that dissimilar to a gamers quest and that people like to think that they are achieving more than they may actually be. You can use that to engage and influence their behaviour – all you have to do is play the game.

Now, I set myself the challenge to write that blog about game mechanics and dynamics for next week. If I do, I will eat chocolate. Lots of it.

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