Google Archives - Gamified UK - #Gamification Expert

Surprise and Delight with Google Photos

June 8, 2015 by Andrzej Marczewski

Anyone who follows me on Twitter has, by now, noticed I have been sharing a load of stuff from Google Photos. For those who don’t know, this is a free service from Google that allows you to basically upload an unlimited number of photos (if you are happy with their “high quality” setting) and store them in the Cloud.

On top of that, Google Photo has some really clever little tricks up its digital sleeve, by way of Auto Awesomeness. It will analyse your images and do all sorts of clever things. It will create panoramas if it finds images in a panoramic sequence. It will create animations of images that have been taken in quick succession. If you have stuff geotagged, it can also create stories based on image sequences and locations. On top of that it will also create montages and filtered images where it sees fit and probably more. As well as that, it categorises things for you and makes your images searchable. You can look for images of faces, of locations, objects and all sorts – which is actually rather handy.

I uploaded about 10,000 images over the course of a few days. From old phone backups, sd cards backups and images I had on picassa many years ago. As you can imagine, most of these had been totally forgotten about.

This is where the surprise and delight comes in and why I am in love with Google Photos.

As Google does its thing and starts making its creations out of your images, it lets you know via the app or the assistant page on its website. Very quickly I became hooked on checking these as Google brought surprsing and delightful new life to imaes long forgotten. Don’t beleive me? Check out this animation it created of my daughter on the day she was born!

S8000044 ANIMATION Surprise and Delight with Google Photos — Olivia at Birth

Google gave me a video I never created of my daughters first day on the planet. That surprised and delighted me!

I know other software is more than capable of creating this sort of thing, but normally you have to do it yourself – there is no surprise when you know you are doing it. The point here is, I was not expecting anything and got things like this.

And wonderful automatically created stories of visits and holidays – like this one from the Natural History Museum.

When an application can give life to old forgotten parts of your history, it adds a whole new level of meaning to the app and creates wonderful moments that can’t be replaced. I know Google are pillaging my images for biometric data, locations, hell – they probably know more about my history and that of my kids than I do, but I don’t care. They have given me happiness and that is priceless.

Gamification is not just about sticking game elements on things. It is about the user experience, done in a way that learns from games. Games surprise and delight the player constantly. Players discover new things, are rewarded for their exploration, their observation, their achievements, their willingness to play that game. It is part of what keeps them playing longer. Reward your users for their participation, not with points and badges. but with things that will make them smile or make them feel valued. I have said it before and will say it again – loyalty is earned and part of that is to make the user feel as though they value you. Google could have settled at just giving people unlimited and convenient photo storage, but they went a massive step further and that is why I staying with this service!

Critisism – well a rant really.

October 6, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

This is a rant – you will find no insight here.. Move along…

I’ve written about criticism in the past, but wanted to bring it up again just for fun.

A couple of days ago, I received some criticism. Nothing to major, but for some reason it really set me off!

I Am pretty good with criticism, I grew up with it. From being labelled as stupid by a school that could not be bothered to offer help for dyslexics, to being called lazy by a medical practice that did not wish to diagnose M.E. as it did not exist, I deal with it pretty well.

These days I court constructive criticism. It makes me re-evaluate and improve when and where I can.

But in this instance I felt it was not needed. I was given the impression I was doing someone a favour, however that turned out to be my error as I had misinterpreted the request. I say misinterpreted, I had failed to read between the very hidden lines that were not made clear until they decided they felt my input had been disappointing. In reality it would have been easier if I had done nothing! Still I did it in my own time and of course – for free (possibly another failing…).

It got me thinking though. What price do you put on facts and knowledge.

My book had a mauling of a review on the German Amazon store. What struck me (other than the annoyance at being picked up on never getting to and too right), was a comment about everything I had written being easy to find on Wikipedia.

There was some truth to this of course. This is true of all non fiction texts (outside of cutting edge research papers), facts are facts and most are out there for anyone to copy and reuse (with the correct citation of course).

The thing is, that is not what I had / have done in the book. Then it struck me. Whilst facts are free, insight is another matter. When I speak on topics where I am covering the same ground trodden by many others before me, I try to make sure I come at it from my perspective and insight. I try to come up with angles that have not been covered before, or to simplify those that have. I also do not force people to engage with them – they do that of their own free will! I had another review that complained the book was simplistic… it is called Gamification: A Simple Introduction, it is in the title. That is like buying a maths book for 5 year olds and complaining it was too easy for a 20 year old.

I deal with criticism in many ways. Normally (as I have said) I take it on the chin and learn / move on. My issue is when it is levelled in an unfair or totally pointless way. Sadly the anonymity of the internet mixed with everyones new found ability to be an expert at everything (Google and Wikipedia), it is just a fact of life now. However, if you want to criticise, at least allow me to do the same with your original and interesting work…. oh…. wait…. never mind.

Maybe from now on I should stop doing people favours. Maybe if they all have to pay for my help, they would appreciate it more 😉

</rant>

Forget loyalty, how about liking?

September 24, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

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:

“Making decisions with your heart rather than your head”

Let me explain this first, then move to my point.

Truly loyal customers will choose your product over other despite value or convenience. Take Apple. They have been selling phones to people that are of lower specifications than other brands and at far higher costs. Logically, this makes no sense. However, when you buy an Apple product you are buying with your heart. You want to be part of the community that owns them, you want to own the pretty shiny thing. The fact that in almost every way it is inferior to anything comparable on the market makes no difference. I know all of this and still have one – and will have the iPhone 6 when it comes out. I am loyal to iPhone (if not Apple).

There are a few other things at play. I am loyal to the ecosystem and the simplicity – but this is now more about being bought into the ecosystem and the perceived cost and time of moving to a better Android phone is too much to deal with!

Here comes the point. YOU ARE NOT APPLE.

You can’t sell an inferior product at twice the price and have people thank you for it.

You can’t even sell a better product at the same price and guarantee return sales.

With this in mind, how about we forget loyal customers and think about customers who like you instead. This is a much easier and less expensive goal to aim for initially.

Getting people to like you

Be honest
Speak to your customers like they are at least your equals
Don’t try to trick them into buying your products
Use things like gamification in interesting ways, not just as a boring “Loyalty” scheme (Hint, bribing people to come back is NOT the same as loyalty!)
Give good value, without cutting your own throats
Stop trying to be Apple (or Google or any other huge brand that has millions to spend on this kind of thing)
Be your self and be true to your vision.

If you can do all of this, you will at the very least not generate dislike. You might get people to like you and your product and eventually this may lead to true loyalty!

Gamification: Pervasive User Centric Design

May 22, 2017September 11, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

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.

Magic circle gamification Gamification Pervasive User Centric Design — Standard Game

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.

Pervasive games break this boundary.

Pervasive game Gamification Pervasive User Centric Design — Pervasive Game

A great example of this is Google’s popular Ingress. This is a location based game, where you have to physically be in specific locations in order to play the game. So whilst the game continuum is within the virtual world – it is played out in the real world.

Of course, this is exactly how at least one popular form of gamification works – fitness apps like Zombies Run or FitBit. Whilst the data collection and feedback happen in the application, the actual activity occurs in the real world. In fact, if you look at almost all gamification could be considered pervasive design.

If we consider work as the real world and gamification as the virtual world, gamification is constantly crossing the barrier into work. You have to do real work to progress in the gamified system. In education, you have to learn and achieve to progress in the gamified system. You have to succeed in the real world to succeed in the virtual world!

The second thing that had me thinking was the idea that this is extremely user centric in its approach – i.e. the user is at the centre of the design decisions and the experience. If it is not about them it just will never work!

So you could say that gamification is Pervasive User Centric Design! This is what I will tell the next company to talk about if I can’t convince them just to use gamification!

Gamification and Habits

April 2, 2014March 31, 2014 by Andrzej Marczewski

I will state now, I am not claiming to be an expert on habits, however – I wanted to share some thoughts on how gamification can help with habit building.

There are several habit or behaviour models out there. My two favourites are Nir Eyal’s Hook model and BJ Fogg’s Behaviour Model.

For the sake of this blog, I am concentrating on the Fogg model, I personally have a better understanding of this one. I am reading Nir’s book at the moment so expect me to expand on this concept soon!

Fogg states that there are three things that need to fall in to perfect alignment for behaviours and habits to change; Ability, Motivation and Triggers.

20140402 070224 Gamification and Habits — BJ Fogg’s Behaviour Model (c) BJ Fogg 2007

As you can see from the graph, things that are hard to do need greater levels motivation to do them, whilst things that we are not motivated to do in some way need to be easier to do. Either way, you need triggers at the right time to actually do them in the first place.

Let’s take an example of time sheeting system. Very often these are complicated and very user un-friendly. Whilst you may be motivated from the point of view of “I have to fill this in or I wont get paid” (loss aversion and fear), really it holds no interest for you. The fact that it is also hard to do makes it doubly troublesome for people. Usually a few days before your time-sheet is due, you may get some reminder about filling it in, but the likelihood is that this comes at a point when you are busy and gets ignored.

So on Fogg’s chart we are in a problematic area because motivation is pretty low and the complexity means that ability is also low. Add the fact the triggers are pretty weak and you can see why so many companies struggle to get people to get time sheets and expenses done in a timely fashion, it is not habitual for many employees – it is a pain in the back side!

Gamification can help with each of these three factors in different ways.

Education

If people are educated to understand what the benefits are of getting time sheets in on time are, beyond htat of not being paid, then this could help. Give users a sense of purpose by explaining the costs to the company and the people. Explain how much money could be saved if people did this without constant chasing and most importantly how this saving could be fed back to them in the long run. This may go towards increasing motivation.

Also, educate them in the most efficient way of using the system. With luck, the system will be straightforward enough to not need this, but if it isn’t then you need to help people as much as possible. This will go towards increasin peoples ability and making it easier in the future.

System Design

Google vs apple vs you 155x300 Gamification and Habits — Google vs Apple vs You

As I eluded to in the previous paragraph, make the system easier to use. There is a joke meme that went around ages ago about how your enterprise system compares to Apple and Google ideals. Many people said that it was unfair to compare them to enterprise products as more information needed to be collected.

The truth of the matter is, your employees don’t care about that in the slightest – that is your problem. They have been raised on products that are becoming simpler and simpler to use in the consumer market, whilst it often seems that enterprise and internal products are getting more and more complex to use.

Whilst you may not be able to get your expenses app to only need one text box – you can certainly make it simpler and easy to use. Make sure it is mobile, give people the ability to enter information and scan direct from their mobile. Make the app web based and accessible. Don’t just show hundreds of drop downs, try to give the ability to users to personalise their view so that it only contains their most common tasks.

All of this will reduce the friction users come up against when they use the system and thus increase their ability to use it.

Triggers.

Fogg’s model of Behaviour change revolves around the use of triggers. You may be motivated as hell to do something and it may be the simplest thing in the world to do – but until it has become habitual – you will need to be triggered at a good time to do it. Sending an email at an appropriate time of day may do it. Don’t send it at lunch time – no one will read it and if they do, they will be eating their lunch so wont act on it. Don’t send it first thing as they will be busy with their morning routine. Don’t send it after hours as it will get ignored. Send it during the day, at a time when the morning rush is over and they are settling into day to day work. The exact time comes down to personal culture. Maybe there is a common time for coffee breaks, time the email to come out just after that.

The other thing is, send more than one, that way it has more chance of being seen. If your system is mobile friendly – send a text. Whatever you do – do not send a text or any kind of mobile notification if your system can not be accessed easily from a mobile device!

Finally (and at times optional) Feedback

Thank people for getting things done when you wanted them done. Positive re-enforcement is much stronger than negative. So thank them and let them know that their effort has been appreciated. Personally I much prefer speed notifications on roads that thank me for sticking to the speed limit rather than only telling me off for going too fast.

Gamification can be used in so many ways to improve motivation, reduce complexity of tasks and prompt or remind people. And not one mention of using Points, Badges or Leaderboards! (though they can have their place here as well!!)