The basic idea was that if a user has to work hard to get a reward, it had better be worth something. At the same time, if the value of the activity is high to the client, the reward should also be worth having.
At the time I wrote that, I developed a simple spreadsheet to help me calculate reward values for activities for a client I was working with. I thought I would share that with you to help you with your projects as well.
How to Use It
Open the spreadsheet and start by entering the activities in the first column.
Next, estimate the activity’s value to the client 1 to 5, 5 being the highest.
Do the same for the value to the user and the user effort.
The sheet will give you overall value of the activity and an idea of how to score it.
You will notice there is a weighted value. If you go to the settings tab, you can adjust the weighting of each of the value types (value to client, value to user, user effort).
The weighting is on a scale of 1 to 10 to give you a bit more control. The more important the value type, the higher you should set the weighting.
Min Points sets the smallest number of points that can be assigned to an activity and will change the values in the Points column of the first sheet.
Here is a little excerpt for the book for you, you know that book that I am still editing but hope to have published in the next 2 weeks…!
Whist basing the value of the reward on a user’s personal investment is important, it is also important not to lose sight of why you were gamifying the system in the first place.
Normally it is because there are certain actions or activities that you want to encourage the user to perform and complete. That being the case, you have to sometimes consider how valuable the action is to you, not just how much effort it is for the user.
If an action is simple for the user and valuable to you – then reward them. If it is harder for them and valuable to you – reward them more. If it is easy and of low value to you – don’t reward them much. So far, so obvious.
However, it is when the activity is hard for the user, but of lower value to you, that it can get a bit tricky. First, ask the question “Do we actually want the user to do this if it is so hard for them and of so little value to us?” If you can answer that and still feel that the action is needed, you have to give them a decent reward. Not as much as you would if it was high effort for them and high value to you, but more than low effort and high value!
The picture below an outline of how this would work. The more stars, the greater the value of the reward. Again, this is value as perceived by the user!
As I say, the book should be out in the next week or two, sign up to find out when it is out and possibly even get a little early bird discount!
One of the keys to getting the use of rewards right, is understanding their value to the user relative to the actions or activities you want them to undertake. You have to consider the effort it will take. Effort here is: skill, time, physical effort, mental effort etc.
For example, if you offer a user an iPad for posting a single two line comment on your blog, you are setting the reward far too high for the relative effort expected of the user. If you offered an iPad to the person who finds the most bugs in your system, knowing that they will have to spend hours of their own time doing it, that is a better match of reward against relative effort.
If you are using rewards as incentives to perform low effort tasks, make sure that they are of low value. Points that they can collect to trade for goods for instance. The individual rewards are low value, but continued actions can lead to more valuable rewards for the user. This is how loyalty schemes tend to work.
Perceived Value of Reward vs. Effort
The graph above shows a summary of how you can view the value of rewards against effort and more importantly, if they are effective or efficient. A large reward for a low effort task, might well work, but it is not an efficient way to do things. On the flip side, ask for high effort for low reward and it becomes ineffective – even insulting.
Another interesting wrinkle here is the effect of rewards on totally intrinsic tasks – especially tasks that require altruism or kindness. If someone is doing something out of the kindness of their heart, with no expectation of reward – giving them a high value reward, even as a surprise, can be insulting. It undermines the original altruistic intention. This is definitely where you look at either giving nothing, or low value tokens of appreciation (pens, mugs with logos on, silly gifts).
Insulting people with rewards
You may have notices, there is more than a little here that looks like Flow. The reward needs to increase relative to the effort needed to complete the task. There are “sweet spots” and there are “danger areas”. To complete the Flow comparisons, I wanted to break down the chart into segments as in the original inspiration. After a bit of work and a very good chat with Roman Rackwitz – I offer this.
Rewarded: I got generously rewarded for a decent amount of effort.
Confused: I got way more than I expected for very little work, not sure why?
Happy: A decent reward for not too much work, thanks.
Satisfied: I didn’t have to do much, so I am satisfied with a small token.
Unmotivated: The reward really doesn’t motivate me to exert the needed effort, but I will at a push.
Insulted: You must be joking right? You want me to do all that for so little reward? Jog on!
Apathetic: It’s a lot of effort, the reward is okay. Fine I’ll do it, but don’t expect much.
Valued: I had to work hard and it was a challenge, but the reward was well worth it. Thanks.
The first thing that may jump out is that keeping people happy is just about giving a decent reward for low effort tasks. However, if you go back to the original graph, you will see that this is an inefficient use of rewards.
Perceived Value vs. Effort – Efficient vs. Effective
So getting the use of rewards right is tough. You have to make sure that the perceived value is relative to the perceived effort needed to achieve the task and keep in mind out efficient the use of the reward is.
You also have to keep the word “relative” close to your decisions.
For an English-speaking adult, writing a comment or a review in English is a low to medium effort task. For a non-English speaker, this would be a high effort task.
With the reward, an iPad may not be a massive reward for a reasonably affluent country, but for less affluent countries, its relative value is very high. So in the affluent country you would have a medium effort task against a medium value reward. In the less affluent country it would be seen as medium effort task with a high value reward.
This is very important as getting this wrong can cause unforeseen issues in a gamified system. I have seen entire systems ruined because the reward was too valuable for some to see a reason to “play fair” in order to earn it.
Oh as a little extra, the video of my talk on User Types from Gamification World Congress 2014 went live today 🙂
There has always been this common thought that if you have to work harder for something or you have to wait for it, the reward will be all the greater in your mind. Now for the most part. that is absolutely true. The anticipation of some sort of reward 1 is a massive trigger for dopamine and can make the reward all the more… well, rewarding – which we like!
The Marshmallow Test
However, not everyone is able to wait for a reward. There was a fantastic experiment in the 70s now referred to as the Marshmallow Test 2. The set up was that children were sat in a room and a marshmallow was placed on the table in front of them. They were given an offer. Eat this one marshmallow now OR wait until I come back and you can have two marshmallows. It is worth watching the videos if you need a smile!
The really interesting part of this was what happened to the children over the years, you see they followed their progress for 40 years! What they found was that the children who could wait for the second marshmallow, who could delay the gratification, were more successful in just about every way over the years 3! Their mindset allowed them to take short term pain for long term gain.
Another interesting study that is very relevant here was done around 2012 and it looked at how experience, or as they called it “environmental reliability 4“, affected the marshmallow test. The set up was similar, but before the test began the children were split into two different groups. They were both offered certain things, like extra crayons for colouring in pictures. The difference was, one group got given the things they were promised, the other was not. When they then ran the marshmallow test on these groups, the group that had been getting things they were promised showed a much great ability to delay gratification and wait for the second marshmallow. Their expectations and trust were such that they felt confident that the researcher would return. The other group had no reason to trust the researcher, so ate the marshmallow straight away!
They proved that delayed gratification was a cognitive process. We assess based on experience whether it is worth waiting or not.
Applying this to Gamification
There are a few big takeaways from this that we can apply to gamification.
People will wait for rewards if they feel they are worth it.
People will wait for rewards if they trust that it will come.
Anticipation can lead to greater gratification from a reward.
But, we need to be able to apply this in a reliable way. The diagram below gives a quick outline of how you can be done.
Reward Value vs Relative Effort and Delay
If you make someone wait for a reward, make sure it is worth them having. That does not mean the reward has to be larger, rather the value they place on the reward is larger. Take a relationship. Relationships take work, they take time. When you first meet someone it is rare that you are suddenly best friends. But take the time and work at it and the friendship can become incredibly rewarding.
Goals that are in the distance can be hard to focus on. I wrote a while ago about something called Construal Level Theory.
Construal Level Theory
The basic idea is that events that are about to happen are perceived as concrete in out mind. It is easy to visualise them and work on them. Distant events are perceived as abstract, they are much harder for use to give urgency or importance to because they feel less real. Think about exams. Two months before an exam, revision seems less urgent – the exam is an abstract concept to us – it is not here so is not quite real. As we get closer to the exam, revision may start to get more important. The day of the exam, it is very real and you start to wish you had been revising for two months after all!
Along the way though we need signals that we are following the right path. Going back to the relationship, if we start to feel that the other person is not returning the friendship, that there are no signals that it is going well, we will begin to drift away and the friendship will fail.
So, whilst waiting for the big prize, people need to have smaller ones to nudge them along. These will have less value to them but will help to keep them on the right path.
In our gamified system, the small, regular nudges come in the form of things like points. They have less value to the user, but they show the user they have done something right. Slightly larger nudges would include more visible and potentially more valuable rewards (think badges that represent certain smaller achievements). These could me considered as short term goals (remember SMART?) Finally, after hard work and patience, the larger reward. These will be less common but should represent some real level of achievement or be attached to a larger value reward of some sort.
Along the way, there is nothing wrong with randomly giving a larger reward that has not been “earned” as a way to just have the system say “Thanks for sticking with it”. These will give the user a nice sense of feeling they are valued. Avoid making people work hard and wait just to get a low-value reward. They will not appreciate this at all!
Perceived Value
It is very important to appreciate that the perceived value of things can reduce over time. What someone will work really hard to achieve initially, they may not be willing to work as hard for a second or a third time. They will expect the value of the final reward to be greater each time, especially if they are expected to work harder. So when you think about your system, as the difficulty and skill requirements increase, so should the value of the long-term reward! We could consider Reward vs Investment. The investment could be time, effort, emotional etc.
A theoretical example
Reward vs Investment Example
Take a look at your system and see where your rewards sit on the grid
Clear, James. “40 Years of Stanford Research Found That People With This One Quality Are More Likely to Succeed.” 40 Years of Stanford Research Found That People With This One Quality Are More Likely to Succeed. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2015. <http://jamesclear.com/delayed-gratification>.
Kidda, Celeste, Holly Palmeria, and Richard Aslina. “Download PDFs.” Rational Snacking: Young Children’s Decision-making on the Marshmallow Task Is Moderated by Beliefs about Environmental Reliability. Cognition, Jan. 2013. Web. 06 Feb. 2015. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027712001849>.
