motivation

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.

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!