rewards

Diminishing Effect of Rewards

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Scales 1487607673 Diminishing Effect of Rewards

One of the things you discover when you have kids is just how much you must bribe them to achieve anything. This is especially galling when, like me, you understand the behavioural impacts of using rewards to modify behaviour etc.

One of the things this has shown me is the existence of an effect I’m calling here “the diminishing effects of rewards”.

Basically repeated use of rewards leads to the rewards becoming less and less effective until they become expected payments rather than rewards. This is not quite the same as Over Justification effect as the reward does not become more important than the activity, it just becomes an expected part of the activity and without it, the activity is no longer considered acceptable. Read More ...

5 Steps to a Happier Life with Gamification

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Ok, this sounds a little “self helpy”, but it came to me when I was doing a lecture for a group of Masters students at Kings College recently. I ended the talk, rather by accident, with the following advice

“Always be sure you know why you are doing things, understand their purpose. It helps to then work towards small goals.  That way no task, no matter how big – even the crushing student debt you probably have right now – will be manageable”

Anyone who has seen me speak knows that I get quite passionate. What they may not know is that I react to the audience and adapt my talks accordingly. This group were great and it felt right to give them a little ad-hoc advice. it got me thinking, though, what lessons from gamification am I applying in my own life day to day? Read More ...

Three Rules for Meaningful Rewards in Gamification

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Rewards can be very powerful, which is why I have spoken about them so many times! I already wrote about the three keys of rewards (Relevant, In-Time and Meaningful). However, I wanted to just blast out a quick post on the meaningful bit of that! 1 and 2 are essential, 3 is a very big nice to have!

They have to …

  1. be earned
  2. have intrinsic value
  3. have extrinsic value

Feeling that you have earned a reward is much more satisfying than just being given the “I pushed a button” reward.

If the reward has some level of personal value to the user, like it represents the end of a tough journey to mastery, then it will feel much more meaningful. Read More ...

Target Gamification – My Top 9 Gamification Elements

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There are some questions I am asked more than others. Today I want to give a slightly longer answer to one of them than usual! The question? “What is your favourite gamification element?”

My usual answer fluctuates between feedback (which covers anything from verbal to full online economies) or progress, which I have written about in the past. Recently though I realised that this was just not enough of an answer anymore.

The truth is, I have no one favourite element, every solution requires something a little bit different. However, there is a sort of process that I go through when designing a solution or strategy. It starts with my core or target (see – it ties in with the title!!). Then I have a few things that help to support that core, then finally something that embraces it all. Let’s start with an image. Read More ...

Excel Template to Calculate Activity Value

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A while back I wrote an article about how you have to balance the reward value of activities against the value to the client, user and effort.

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. Read More ...

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