self determination theory

Just rewarding activity is not gamification: stop it!

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Image Just rewarding activity is not gamification stop it

I have promised in the past not to write about the dangers of extrinsic rewards anymore. However, can’t stand reading about gamification being a failure anymore, when the articles proclaiming this almost always start with “gamification is about awarding points, or physical rewards to people for doing dull tasks”.

No quoting from Dan Pink or Deci and Ryan this time, just facts based on experience.

If you offer a reward, especially a material reward that has value to people, you are setting yourself up for failure. Every time I have seen a ‘gamified’ campaign that offers someone like an iPad as a prize for participation, it has had problems. The worst culprit is when the prize is offered for nothing more than activity (so no actual creativity needed). Read More ...

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Why User Types?

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Me presenting the gamification user types hexad Why User Types

Second post in a day, not very SEO clever, I know.

I wanted to take a moment to explain my view on User and Player types and their use in gamification.

First up, some bullets so you get the idea quickly.

What User Types are not;

  1. Perfect
  2. Applicable to every situation or project
  3. The same in all contexts
  4. Pure science

What User Types are;

  1. A tool in an overall toolkit
  2. Easy to use and get your head around
  3. Useful if you understand their limitations
  4. In my case based on motivation (eg Self Determination Theory), observation and research

I created the my User Types, because I wanted to use something in my thinking and design that focused on users, but was not built for games. I had been using Bartle’s types, but they just did not fit well with gamification – this is something he repeatedly tells people! It was also very hard to talk to people in enterprise about killers (i.e. people who take pleasure in the harm they can cause others). I also wanted to approach my types from the perspective of what motivated people rather than how they behaved. Read More ...

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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!

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Gamification: Low tech real-time feedback

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Behaviour meter Gamification Low tech real time feedback

Using gamification on my kids is nothing new. I have openly written about my failure as a gamifier when it came to my eldest daughters reward chart!  However, now I am trying a little experiment, one that is nice and low tech and involved no points or badges!

On our fridge we now have this little chart.

Throughout the day my wife and I alter the position of the arrow depending on how my daughter is behaving. We don’t tell her what the current reading is – she has to look at the feedback for herself. Of course this is on top of other verbal feedback we are giving her as well. However, this gives her a fixed reminder of how we feel she is doing. Read More ...

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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 ...

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