motivation

A few gamification tips

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20140414 090949 A few gamification tips

Whilst I am away for a few days, I though I would fill the gap with a quick post for you all. A few gamification tips.

  • Define your goal, you can’t expect anything to work if you have no reason to use it.
  • Extrinsic rewards like points and badges are useful for short term engagement only. They do not make a fully gamified system.
  • Intrinsic motivation is what you are aiming for. Consider RAMP (Relatedness, Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose).
  • Find out what the user wants and design around that. Sure, you have goals, but the user won’t buy into it unless if satisfies their needs in some way.
  • You can’t force fun. What you think will be fun, many will find insulting, patronising or down right enraging.
  • Gamification is not a magic bullet. You may see sudden increases in activity, but overall you will get small percentage increases. This is good as it is better than what you had!
  • Measure. If you don’t measure, you can’t report back on ROI and you will not be able to prove it works.
  • Fail, but learn from it. If something doesn’t work, try something else. There is no magic formula for engagement.
  • Ask for help. There is a huge community out there of people who want to help you – ask them.
  • Don’t believe everything you read, even the big analysts can be wrong. However, read everything!
  • Add monkeys or monkey ninjas. Everyone loves monkeys and everyone loves ninjas.
    • Read More ...

    Gamification and Habits

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    Habit Gamification and Habits

    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! Read More ...

    Points & Badges Video Tutorial

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    Vlcsnap 2014 03 27 11h36m24s217 Points 038 Badges Video Tutorial

    The fourth video in my series of tutorials (finally!!)

    This one is just a short (10 minute) look at points and badges in gamified systems and how to make some use of them. Not all that different from my Points and Badges: Not Totally Evil blog post, but also talks about balancing and best use case.

    Enjoy!

    Points and Badges in Gamification – Not totally evil.

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    Pb Points and Badges in Gamification 8211 Not totally evil

    Over the last few days, the conversation about the use of points and badges has come up several times with several different people.

    The stock answer in gamification these days is that points and badges are bad gamification. They are meaningless and we should be looking at intrinsic motivation more – yet almost every implementation you see of gamification will have some form of points system and probably badges.  They may be called experience points and achievements, or gami-dollars and pictograms – who knows – but they still seem to be there. Read More ...

    3 Layers of Motivation (Updated for 2018)

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    Layers of motivation 2017 3 Layers of Motivation Updated for 2018

    The more I consider motivation, the more I realise it is one of those things we in gamification use as a catch-all. It’s a bit like how we treat the term “game mechanics” and, well, gamification!

    Generally speaking, you will hear the terms intrinsic and extrinsic when motivation is spoken about. You will hear Deci & Ryan, Dan Pink, Maslow and more spoken about. However, when it comes down to it our argument is always the same. Intrinsic motivation is always better than extrinsic rewards. At times you will also hear a further comment that a balance of extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation will yield the best results. Read More ...