Gamification for Product Excellence E-Book

Mike Hyzy

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 616

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Are you trying to build a product that your audience loves to use? Game mechanics and psychology have been used for decades to increase engagement, convert users to buyers, and increase audience retention. Learning when and where to implement these tools can take your product from the middle of the pack to a must-have!
This book begins by helping you get a clear understanding of gamification, its key concepts, and how product managers can leverage it to drive user engagement in non-game scenarios. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll learn different gamification frameworks, mechanics, and elements with structured ways to implement them while designing a successful gamification strategy tailored to a business case. You'll get a chance to implement and test the designed strategy prototype with the users for feedback. You’ll also discover how to sell your strategy to stakeholders to get full buy-in from the top down, along with how to gamify your product development process to drive innovation, engagement, and motivation.
By the end of this book, you'll be primed to harness the power of gamification, and will have benefited from proven case studies, best practices, and tips, ensuring you are well-equipped to apply gamification principles to your work as a product development professional.

Leseprobe

Gamification for Product Excellence

Make your product stand out with higher user engagement, retention, and innovation

Mike Hyzy

Bret Wardle

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Gamification for Product Excellence

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Endorsements for Gamification for Product Excellence

An eye-opening exploration of how gamification can supercharge product development. This book is an excellent read for anyone passionate about creating exceptional user experiences.

Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

‘Gamification for Product Excellence’ is one of the most holistic and comprehensive books on modern Gamification. I highly recommend it for product leaders!

Yu-kai Chou, Creator of The Octalysis Framework, and Author of Actionable Gamification - Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards

'Gamification for Product Excellence' thoughtfully navigates the intricate landscape of gamification, emphasizing ethical considerations to ensure a well-rounded approach for product development.

Marc Lane, Attorney and Author of The Mission-Driven Venture: Business Solutions to the World’s Most Vexing Social Problems

Mike Hyzy and Bret Wardle’s book ‘Gamification for Product Excellence’ takes readers from Asteroids to Easter eggs as they explore both the history and psychology of gameplay while sharing with readers important principles like the power of rewards, voting, storytelling, and even the power of losing—or averting loss! This book isn’t just for product managers, but anyone looking to create a more engaging business experience through gamification.

Geoff Thatcher, Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Creative Principals and Author of The CEO's Time Machine

Description

Are you trying to build a product that your audience loves to use? Game mechanics and psychology have been used for decades to increase engagement, convert users to buyers, and increase audience retention. Learning when and where to implement these tools can take your product from the middle of the pack to a must-have!

This book begins by helping you get a clear understanding of gamification, its key concepts, and how product managers can leverage it to drive user engagement in non-game scenarios. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll learn different gamification frameworks, mechanics, and elements with structured ways to implement them while designing a successful gamification strategy tailored to a business case. You'll get a chance to implement and test the designed strategy prototype with the users for feedback. You’ll also discover how to sell your strategy to stakeholders to get full buy-in from the top down, along with how to gamify your product development process to drive innovation, engagement, and motivation.

By the end of this book, you'll be primed to harness the power of gamification, and will have benefited from proven case studies, best practices, and tips, ensuring you are well-equipped to apply gamification principles to your work as a product development professional.

What you will learn

Explore gamification and learn how to engage your user with itGain insights into the functionality and implementation of different gamification frameworksMaster specific game elements and mechanics that can be used to improve user experiencesDesign a successful gamification strategy to test your hypothesis and develop a business caseImplement and test the prototype you’ve created with users for feedbackSay the right words to sell your gamification strategy to stakeholdersUse design thinking exercises and game elements to improve the product management process

To my parents, my wife, my mentors, and my daughter, Vivian: your unwavering support, love, and belief in me have been the driving force behind my journey. Thank you for inspiring me to pursue my passions and for being the pillars of strength in my life. This book is dedicated to each of you, as you have played an integral role in shaping who I am today. Your presence brings joy and meaning to my life, and I am grateful for the laughter, love, and endless encouragement you provide.

– Mike Hyzy

This book is dedicated to the two pillars of my life: my incredible wife and my fantastic children. To my wife, who has provided unwavering support, inspiration, and love throughout this journey; thank you for standing by my side, for understanding my passions, and for being my lifelong friend. To my children, thank you for sharing my love for gaming, for indulging me on nostalgic adventures, and for embracing the classics that came well before your time.

– Bret Wardle

Foreword

There isn’t a single aspect of our digital lives untouched by product management. As unsung (and often underappreciated) heroes of our new, tech world, product people toil in relative obscurity to create experiences that are fun, engaging, functional, and ultimately successful.

Accomplishing this can be a challenge – both because of the cynicism and distraction of users, and also the exhausting rhythm of life in the PM function. In a sense, the opportunities to use fun and engagement to motivate and succeed exist on both sides of the equation.

Gamification provides a perfect platform to accomplish this, regardless of which aspect of product management demands improvement. As a system of behavioral design, gamification delivers a wide range of frameworks, tactics, and techniques that can radically transform any system and its users into something with positive growth and satisfaction.

In this book, Wardle and Hyzy have neatly organized extensive information about gamification and how to use it, filtered through the lens of utility in product management. This is no simple task, as decades of research and practice have generated an exceptionally broad field of tools, techniques, and approaches to creating engagement using the best ideas from games.

Without a doubt, your organization, processes, and products can benefit from gamification approaches. And this book will be a worthy and comprehensive guide to your journey along the way.

Gabe Zichermann

CEO, Gamification Co

Contributors

About the authors

Mike Hyzy is a highly experienced product strategist and principal consultant with a proven track record of delivering results. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills, guiding cross-functional teams to successful product launches and driving growth for his clients. With a deep understanding of the product development landscape, Mike is known for his ability to develop and execute effective product strategies, bringing innovative products to market. Mike holds key certifications, including an NPDP certification from the Product Development and Management Association, a CSPO certification from the Scrum Alliance, and a Foresight Practitioner certification from the Institute for the Future.

Bret Wardle is an advocate for the convergence of design psychology in games and software. This includes concepts such as understanding similarities between professional e-sport players and software power users and studying the societal changes invoked by using “hi-scores” in e-commerce platforms. He finds joy in implementing these findings to make products and experiences people love to use! He started his career as a game designer and has since moved over to primarily software and product design. Bret has worked within organizations as large as Electronic Arts, and as small as two-person start-ups. Bret is Nielsen Norman Group Masters certified, as well as holding a PMC-V certification from the Pragmatic Institute.

About the reviewers

Amad Amin is a senior product executive whose career has spanned financial services, IoT, e-commerce and marketplace, SaaS, and HealthTech. He has a proven track record of success in creating innovative digital solutions for enterprise and global accounts. He has expertise in managing highly complex systems of interdependencies, leading product development and design, and directing cross-functional teams, including clients, domain experts, applications professionals, and technical engineers. He holds multiple patents. When he is not working on products, he hosts the If I Could podcast.

Brad Sytsma has worked in the employee recognition and engagement space for the last decade. As a product manager in the employee engagement industry, Brad coordinates with Terryberry’s development, marketing, sales, and customer success teams to design and improve product features on Terryberry’s web and mobile employee engagement platforms. Outside of the world of products, Brad is an actor and playwright who enjoys telling stories rooted in the human experience.

Danny Spillman is a chief innovation officer and chief people officer. Throughout his career, he has always matched the excitement of attempting the impossible with a profound commitment to team unity.

On the technical side, he has led innovation strategies that yielded novel programs and products. Most often, these have been within a corporate incubator environment, where he had the freedom to fulfill a corporate vision with very few cultural restraints. With this type of autonomy, he nurtured a number of SaaS products with Spillman Technologies, which catapulted the company to eight figures of annual revenue and Inc. 5000 ranks for fastest-growing private companies for seven years running, with the company growing by 49% from 2009 to 2012 alone. In short, the company leaned on him to shift its mindset, break down corporate norms that nearly prevented a foray into the SaaS space, and promote a company ripe for acquisition by Motorola in 2016.

Whitney Shirk is a highly skilled and accomplished product manager with a passion for innovation and customer-centric product development. With over 15 years of experience in the tech industry, Whitney has successfully led and delivered numerous product initiatives from conception to launch.

Whitney is based out of Chicago, USA. You can reach out to her at [email protected].

Table of Contents

Preface

1

Gamification Basics

Introduction to gamification

Games as a business

Gamification basics

History of gamification

The birth of games

Games as motivators

Gaming goes electronic

Games in the home and everyday life

Connectivity in game design

Key concepts in gamification

Reward systems

Progress tracking

Narrative and storytelling

Social engagement

Game psychology

Where gamification stands today

Gamification ethics and planning

Industry acceptance

Summary

Further reading

2

Gamification for Product Managers

Product manager core competencies

Product managers’ emotional quotient (PMEQ)

“Elite eight” product manager skills

How this book fits into your product career

Gamification increases user engagement

Benefits of gamification for user engagement

Why the app was created

Gamification can give “nudges” to desired behaviors

Gamification differentiates your product and breaks the status quo

Summary

3

Gamification Frameworks and Experts

Gamification frameworks and methodologies

The MDA framework

The Fogg Behavior Model

The SCARF Model

HEXAD User Type Framework

The Octalysis Framework

The Hooked Model

The RAMP framework

SAPS Reward Framework

RECIPE Framework

The Game Thinking Framework

The PBL Model

6D Framework

4 Keys 2 Fun

Additional players in the game

Jane McGonigal

Celia Hodent

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Summary

Further reading

4

Understanding Your User

Market research, data, and collection methods

Primary research

Secondary research

Qualitative versus quantitative methods

Sample size and sampling methods

Sample size example

Understanding user motivation and behavior

Triangulating insights and bridging the qualitative-quantitative divide

Applying market research insights to drive product excellence

Creating user personas and Jobs to Be Done

Personas

JTBD

Summary

5

Game Mechanics and Psychology

Reward systems

Point redemption

Punch cards

Referral systems

Content unlocks

Memberships

Community recognition

Purchase matching

Random loot

Progress tracking

Points

Leveling

Badges

Achievements

Completion scores

Step counters

Completion rewards

Tests of knowledge

Accomplishment splashes

Save points

Anniversary call-out

Narrative and storytelling

Customer reviews

Environmental, Social, and Governance

Year in review

Inventory systems

User profiles

Avatars

Mentor

Abandonment capture

User research artifacts

Social engagement

High scores

Leaderboards

Live collaboration

Share button

Voting

Reactions

Chat

Friends and follow

Game psychology

Clues

Layering

Experimentation

Ambiance

Repetition

Landmarking

Easter eggs

Emergent behavior

Boss fights

Combos

Summary

Further reading

6

Designing a Gamification Strategy

Setting goals and objectives

Defining OKRs

Defining success metrics

Selecting your personas and JTBD to design around

Choosing the right game mechanics

Hi-Z Fitness

PMM

Creating a game loop

Create progression systems

Encourage social interaction

Include challenges and variety

Incorporating gamification into the user experience

Creating a user journey map

Creating a user flow diagram

Wireframes

Summary

7

Implementing Your Gamification

Decoding your gamification

Building your implementation team

Building a prototype

Building your product

Writing user stories

Milestones and iteration testing

Product and feature launch

The full product launch

New feature rollouts

Setting up tools to track performance

Making data-driven decisions

User acquisition

Activation

Monetization

Retention

A/B testing

Pivot or persevere

Creating a process of continual improvement

Implementing feedback loops

Summary

8

Challenges and Limitations in Gamification

Keeping gamification ethical

Addiction by Design

Balancing gamification and user privacy

Anonymization and aggregation of data

User control and consent

Accessibility to all users

Ensuring gamification doesn’t harm the user experience

Avoiding common pitfalls and mistakes

Behavioral insights

Another example of mistakes from prominent literature

Summary

Further reading

9

Selling Your Gamification Strategy

Building your business case

Use case – Kahoot

Step-by-step guide for creating a compelling business case for gamification

Leadership buy-in

Example of utilizing the Pyramid Principle

Relationship building

Use case – Atlassian

Cross-functional teams

GTM strategy

Case study – Apple Watch

Case study – GuruShots

Case study – Peloton

Summary

Further reading

10

Gamifying Your Product Development Processes

The draft game

Utilizing design thinking to create gamified activities for product development

Empathize – understanding your team’s needs and motivations

Define – setting clear goals and objectives for gamified activities

Ideate – brainstorming creative gamification strategies

Prototype – designing and testing gamified activities

Implement – integrating gamified activities into your product development process

Gamifying your product development process

Gamifying the ideation process

Ideation and innovation sessions

Recognizing and rewarding top contributors

Gamifying product vision and strategy development

Collaborative workshops with gamified reward systems

Creating team-based challenges and goals

Gamifying market research

Competitive rewards for achieving milestones in market research

RICE scoring for feature prioritization

Gamifying user experience (UX) design

Design challenges and competitions

Leveling up your UX and UI teams

Gamifying product management

Gamifying product development and execution

Reward systems for meeting development milestones

Sprint-based challenges and rewards

Encouraging cross-functional collaboration in product development

Gamifying product feedback and continuous improvement

Improvement challenges and rewards

Gamifying user testing and feedback collection

Gamifying gathering requirements

Gamifying the process

Gamifying backlog refinement

Gamifying the Agile development process

Gamified task management systems

Themed retrospectives

Gamifying quality assurance and testing

Reward systems to find and report bugs

Product implementation

Gamifying product launch planning

Gamifying the product launch process

Team-based rewards and recognition for successful launches

Post-launch goals and challenges to maintain motivation

Gamifying post-launch monitoring and analysis

Leveling up your product marketing team

Summary

Further reading

11

Case Studies and Best Practices

Brands that master gamification

Duolingo

Strava

GuruShots

The American Red Cross

Habitica

Prodigy

Gamification strategies that contributed to their success

Best practices and lessons learned

TerryBerry

Bed Bath & Beyond (Overstock)

Entrenuity

Summary

Further reading

12

The Future of Gamification

Gamification on Earth in 2033

Drivers and signals of change

Drivers of change

Signals of change

Four examples of how gamification will shape the future

Technology drivers of change

Signals of change – how AI is changing the future

Regulation and policy drivers of change

Signals of change – deregulation of gambling

Drivers of change – shifts in the workforce

Signal of change – Upwork

Driver of change – health and wellness

Signal of change – improved health through gamification

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

This book will be incredibly utilitarian to specialists across the product development life cycle, such as designers, UX strategists, engineers, and data scientists, and covers areas specific to those roles.

The PM, as defined by us, wears many hats and is responsible for a wide range of activities, including, but not limited to, market research, product development, product positioning pricing, and go-to-market releases. They are the “glue” in the cross-functional team, managing designers, engineers, marketers, and sales teams with different degrees of authority, sometimes none at all. The role motivates and drives the vision, so the teams involved in the processes are aligned and contribute to a successful product, determined by the KPIs created in the strategy process. The PM also monitors product performance through qualitative and quantitative feedback, through platforms and processes such as analytics, and by gathering customer feedback to guide future product development efforts. And who is in charge of tracking that?

The role of the PM has evolved significantly over time. As technology has continued to expand and evolve, the role of the PM has expanded and evolved as well.

In the past, overseeing the development and launch of a single product or product line was the role of a PM. PMs may be responsible for a wide range of products and services today. The position may work across multiple teams and departments to ensure the successful development and launch of products.

As technology has become more advanced and users have become more sophisticated, the role of the PM has become increasingly focused on user-centered design. PMs must understand the needs and motivations of users and use this information to guide the development of products that meet those needs and use gamification as a tool to do so.

With the rise of big data and analytics, the role of the PM has become more data-driven. PMs use data and metrics to inform product development decisions and may conduct experiments and A/B tests to evaluate the effectiveness of different product features and strategies.

PMs may have worked in isolation in some cases, with limited collaboration across teams and departments. Today, the PM role is much more collaborative. PMs must work closely with designers, engineers, marketers, and other stakeholders to ensure that products have triumphant development and release of products and platform development.

PMs are considered leaders and educators in development methodologies, whether Agile, Scrum, Lean Six Sigma, Lean Startup, or others. With the increasing pace of technological change, the role of the PM has become more focused on becoming an expert in methodologies and rapid iteration. PMs must be able to work quickly and efficiently to develop and launch products and must be able to adapt to changing market conditions and user needs.

Product management roles have grown 32% in the two-year period from August 2017 to June 2019.

The average salary of a PM is $127,979 but is more than $250,000 at companies such as Meta and Amazon.

Being a PM is listed as one of the top 10 best jobs, according to Glassdoor.

So why does this matter?

As the popularity of being a PM continues to rise, so do the expectations and responsibilities. The ongoing joke among PMs is that if the product does well, we get none of the credit, and if it goes wrong, we get all of the blame. The key word in the role is responsibility.

To be an elite PM, you need to master the core functions, have a high level of emotional intelligence, and understand basic concepts in design, engineering, law, economics, policy, data, and marketing as they relate to your product. Gamification is a special set of knowledge and skills that give you a competitive advantage over your peers.

Who this book is for

If you are a product manager, product leader, or product designer weaving gamified experiences and crafting exceptional digital products from conception to reality, then this book is the absolute right pick for you. The topics covered will enable you to level up your products and unleash their full potential through gamification. All the gamification strategies and frameworks discussed in this book can be practically applied across different domains with ease.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Gamification Basics, provides an overview of the fundamentals of gamification and its applications in various domains.

Chapter 2, Gamification for Product Teams, explores how gamification can be utilized to enhance product team performance and collaboration.

Chapter 3, Gamification Frameworks and Experts, explores different gamification frameworks and models for designing effective gamified experiences.

Chapter 4, Understanding Your User, covers strategies for understanding user behavior and preferences to tailor gamification elements accordingly.

Chapter 5, Game Mechanics and Psychology, provides an in-depth analysis of various gamification elements and mechanics to create engaging experiences.

Chapter 6, Designing a Gamification Strategy, provides a step-by-step guide to crafting a comprehensive gamification strategy for a specific context.

Chapter 7, Implementing Your Gamification, covers best practices for implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of a gamification strategy.

Chapter 8, Challenges and Limitations in Gamification, examines the challenges and limitations of gamification and how to address them.

Chapter 9, Selling Your Gamification Strategy, covers techniques for effectively presenting and convincing stakeholders to adopt a gamification strategy.

Chapter 10, Gamify Your Product Development Process, shows how to integrate gamification into the product development life cycle for better outcomes.

Chapter 11, Case Studies and Best Practices, provides real-world case studies and examples of successful gamification implementations.

Chapter 12, The Future of Gamification, provides a glimpse into the future trends and potential advancements in the field of gamification.

To get the most out of this book

In this book, you’ll learn how to integrate game mechanics into your product development process to drive better user engagement and retention. Whether you’re an experienced PM or new to gamification, we’ll provide the knowledge and real-life examples to help you create a compelling business case for gamification. By the end of the book, you’ll be equipped to design practical game mechanics into your user experience and achieve higher levels of user satisfaction and success.

Conventions used

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1

Gamification Basics

Although the term gamification is relatively new, the concept has been around since well before the computer age. And beyond that, humans have enjoyed games since the beginning of recorded history. As with any knowledge, it is important to understand the past to lead toward the future. And rather than start in the early 2000s when the word gamification was first uttered, you should understand why humans enjoy games, and how they can make even mundane tasks feel like important accomplishments. By doing that, you can start to harness the power of gamification to build products that people love to use, talk about, and engage with regularly.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

Introduction to gamificationHistory of gamificationKey concepts of gamificationWhere gamification stands today

Introduction to gamification

Take a second and think about one of the best memories you have with friends or family. It doesn’t need to take long. It could be something recent, or something from your past. Now that you can picture that memory in your head, think about what you and/or the people around you are doing. It may be tied to a significant event in your life (graduation, marriage, the birth of a child, etc.). If it is not one of those significant events, there is a decent chance that this memory involves some form of game, or at least the idea of play. On the other side of that, there is an incredibly small chance that your favorite memory involved you using some form of business software!

Why is it that we fondly remember playing a game of flag football with our family, our first v1sit to a great vacation spot, or sitting around a table with friends playing D&D, poker, dominoes, or any other number of games? Why do we not as easily recall the last time we absolutely crushed it on a work spreadsheet? Games are fun. As humans, we love the concept of playing. It allows us to relax and hyper-focus on a few key elements, as opposed to the many tasks we may juggle on a normal day. But what if we could make the applications we use act more like games, and less like work? That is what gamification is, and what we will explore in this book.

Games as a business

Games are no longer just childish toys either (to be honest, they never were). Gaming has grown to be a giant industry. In 2021, games generated $198 billion (source: https://www.liquidweb.com/insights/video-game-statistics/). That is more than books ($126 billion), music ($22.5 billion), and movies ($45 billion) combined! Of the four segments within the entertainment industry, games is the only one with steady year-over-year growth in the last decade. With numbers like that, it’s hard to deny that people enjoy playing games and are willing to pay for experiences that bring that joy.

Figure 1.1 – Entertainment industry revenue from 2009-2021

Humans enjoy playing games and the challenge, reward, and satisfaction that come with it. But what does that mean for product design? Well, to be honest, a lot. After all, games are products too, with development teams, designers, quality assurance, and tight deadlines, just like their software counterparts. In the early days of software and video game history, those two products were relatively far from each other, but those worlds are colliding. It seems like every major corporation now has a game division or is doing some work in that space. On the flip side, many game publishers are also starting to build their own software platforms (Steam, EA, Epic, and others). And with these crossovers comes employee experience between platforms. It is a natural progression for some software to feel more game-like and for games to start incorporating more software practices. But when those game elements start to bleed into product design and development, we have what is now known as gamification.

Gamification basics

Gamification is a process that involves adding game-like elements and psychology to traditionally non-game activities or products in order to increase engagement, motivation, enjoyment, and fun. Examples of gamification in various industries and fields include loyalty reward programs, apps that offer positive feedback for completing goals, educational software that makes learning fun and interactive, and productivity tools that use game mechanics to motivate employees to complete work. Chances are you are using multiple products each day that includes these types of elements. Did you purchase your morning coffee today? If so, how close are you to earning your next “free drink”? To further that, did you buy your coffee from a specific place knowing you would earn more or better rewards? That is the effect that gamification can have on our brains. Let’s say you made your own coffee this morning… was that decision based on any sort of financial tracker telling you to save money by avoiding the high prices of coffee shops? Or maybe making it yourself just gives you a sense of pride that helps you get your day started right, making you more productive. Gamification is happening all around us, all the time.

Gamification has become a widely recognized and effective approach to engaging and motivating users in a variety of contexts, not just coffee! This starts with initial marketing tactics and continues through the customer journey down the entire path. Game techniques can be applied to any industry in some capacity. Many people think of more “fun” products first, such as fitness, shopping, and leisure, but it can be just as effective in a serious context as well. Did you know that many emergency call centers (911) are timed on how quickly they can assess and triage their calls? By doing this, they know who the top performers are and can better understand how they could improve their efficiency in getting high-priority cases taken care of and moving lower-priority cases to a non-emergency department. Gamification also continues to evolve and expand as new technologies, advancements, and psychological research are developed.

As we discuss the topics throughout this book, examples and lessons will lean toward the role of a product manager (or one of many similar titles). And although this book leans toward that role, it is important to understand that the lessons are just as easily applicable to almost every role on a product or development team. Designers and artists can use gamification to capture users’ attention and help introduce features, functions, or important tasks. Programmers can use games to help collaborate on estimates or take part in hack-a-thons to sharpen their skills. Marketing can benefit from using game psychology to drive a great call to action for potential users. Even quality assurance can use these concepts to motivate and incentivize its teams. These are just a few examples, but anyone can apply these lessons to their product, their work, or their life.

It is also worth noting that we will not only highlight a ton of real-world examples of gamification in practice but we will also refer to a couple of theoretical products as well, one of which will be a social media application like Facebook, LinkedIn, or the platform previously known as Twitter. That application will be referred to as Product Management Media (PMM). The other is a fitness and wellness app like you might see from companies such as Nike or Weight Watchers. We will call it Hi-Z Fitness. We will see these products throughout their life cycles, from ideation and design to feature inclusion and refinement, and potentially take a quick look at marketing gamification for when the product is ready to ship. As topics are discussed, think about how you might implement the ideas in these products, and see whether you can figure out the approach that might be taken before you read about it!

History of gamification

The term gamification seems to have first emerged in 2002, when Nick Pelling, a British programmer and game designer used the term in a blog post to describe the process of using game design mechanics and techniques to make non-game activities more engaging. He was specifically trying to design a game-like interface for ATM machines at the time. However, the term did not initially gain widespread popularity. But, as a concept, gamification was taking place far before the term was established. And more so, as a culture, we have enjoyed games for much of our existence. Before we can discuss how game design theory might be applied to other practices, it is worth looking back at how games themselves got to be an over $200 billion industry… and that goes way back!

The birth of games

Humans have played games for thousands of years. In fact, archaeologists in the Middle East have discovered dice and other gaming artifacts that are thought to be over 3,000 years old! Chinese texts reference other tile-based games that date back to roughly the same time frame. The beginnings of card-based games can also be traced back to China, nearly 1,000 years ago, during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). One of the earliest card games was the “leaf game,” which used paper cards decorated with intricate designs, and players would compete to form winning card combinations. The game spread through trading routes to other parts of Asia, and eventually to Europe. As the social aspect took hold, more and more people wanted to get in on the fun, and, over time, the various games evolved and became popular pastimes. Why humans love games can be hard to pinpoint, but many studies, including a 2021 study titled Stress-Reducing Effects of Playing a Casual Video Game among Undergraduate Students (source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7952082), have found that playing casual games can be nearly as stress reducing as meditation.

In Europe during the Middle Ages, playing cards were often handcrafted and featured religious symbols or figures. The four suits we know today (hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades) evolved from the different social classes in medieval Europe, with hearts representing the clergy, diamonds representing the wealthy merchants, spades representing the nobility, and clubs representing the peasants. During the Renaissance, playing cards began to feature the royal figures we know today, with kings, queens, and jacks representing various historical and legendary rulers. The earliest known European card game was called Karnöffel, which was played in Germany, and the game is still played today as Schafkopf. As the popularity of card games increased, new games and variations emerged, such as poker, bridge, and gin rummy. Even Nintendo, who many consider the grandfather of the modern video game industry, got its start making Japanese playing cards all the way back in 1889.

Games as motivators

Games continued to be played and shared, but 1896 saw one of the first instances of game mechanics being applied to a non-game context. S&H Green Stamps were small stamps that you could collect by purchasing goods at local grocery stores, gas stations, and department stores. Users could take their collected stamps and add them to a “saver book,” which could be redeemed for prizes once filled up. The S&H company would sell these stamps to those retailers, and in turn, the retailers would use them to try and drive business by advertising themselves as a green stamp rewards shop. The program continued for nearly a century and became the basis for nearly all rewards programs that followed. Despite their eventual decline around the 1970s, S&H Green Stamps remain a popular cultural icon and are often referenced in movies and television shows set in the mid-20th century. The stamps are also collected by vintage memorabilia enthusiasts and can often be found for sale at antique shops and flea markets. This program is widely credited for laying the groundwork for all the loyalty programs that came after.

Figure 1.2 – Boy Scout merit badges

In 1908, the Boy Scouts of America organization introduced the merit badge system that it still uses today. This system allows its members to earn one of more than 130 badges by testing their proficiency in a number of skills, including first aid, camping, and swimming. There are more badges added every year and they now include specialized topics such as robotics, cybersecurity, and even game design. The importance of this sort of system is twofold. Not only do you as a user have a clear path to testing your own proficiency in a topic but you also get a physical good that allows you to show your expertise to

others easily. This sort of system continues throughout our entire life with job titles, college degrees, and trade certifications. At a psychological level, seeing someone with a bunch of letters after their name is not much different from seeing your childhood friend showing off their sash with all their merit badges.

Gaming goes electronic

The beginnings of arcade and coin-operated games can also be traced back to the early 1900s when simple mechanical devices such as slot machines and pinball machines were introduced into bars and amusement parks throughout the United States. One of the earliest arcade games was Skee-Ball, which was introduced in 1909 and became a popular attraction at amusement parks around the country. Other games such as shooting galleries, mechanical horse races, and fortune tellers followed. More and more games were introduced as the decades passed and consumers showed more of an appetite for this type of entertainment. By the 1940s, the coin-operated arcade game industry was a lucrative business, and popular leisure activity for many adults and children alike. These early arcade and coin-op games paved the way for the modern arcade industry, which exploded in popularity in the 1980s with the introduction of video games such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Although games have been played for thousands of years, it is important to understand video games in particular in relation to gamification, as the explosion of personal computers and the video game industry are closely tied to one another, and especially to what we think of today as gamification.

Asteroids (1983)

This was the first game to feature a high score list, where you could enter your initials. Adding this type of feature gave this game a high replay value, as when someone bested your score, you were compelled to try to get back on top. In the world of coin-operated gaming, this replay value added directly to the amount of money the game could make.

Asteroids can still be found in many arcades/barcades around the world. If you cannot access it in the wild, you can find many ports of the game online with a quick search. Try playing this or a similar game with your friends and/or family and see what kind of competition arises from it. The sense of pride in being #1 will surely come out in several people and can be a strong motivator to play the game over and over!

As the history of gaming and gamification design shifts from the physical to the digital world, the growth and popularity increase exponentially. With the dawn of the computer age, gaming followed right behind. Created in 1945, ENIAC is considered to be one of the first computers, and used over 17,000 vacuum tubes. Competitors to this system were quick to follow, including EDSAC and EDVAC. It didn't take long for people to use this new technology for fun, as what is often considered the first video game was created in 1952 at the University of Cambridge on the EDSAC system. It was called OXO and was a digital version of tic-tac-toe. Following that were two of the other earliest games: Tennis for Two was a game for a pair of players created in 1958 that used an oscilloscope. The gameplay was meant to simulate a game of tennis, which might sound familiar to anyone who knows a thing or two about Atari. Spacewar! (1961) was also a two-player game, and considered by some to be the first true video game as it used a joystick for control and could be run on a PDP-1 computer, which was the first to use a cathode-ray tube display.

Games in the home and everyday life

Over the next 30 years, both personal computers and video games became more popular and more advanced. Two of the most successful early personal computers were the Apple II, released in 1977, featuring color graphics and a keyboard, and the IBM PC, released in 1981, which featured an open architecture and could be customized by users, paving the way for the widespread adoption of computers in the workplace. Video game consoles were trying to make the same impact in homes as personal computers, but the price was hard to justify for many families. Companies such as Mattel, Coleco, and Magnavox all released their own gaming consoles, but the market was dominated by Atari’s 2600 console. This is attributed to several things, including successful marketing strategies and partnerships with retailers such as Sears and Toys “R” Us. Atari also had a few popular game franchises, including Pong, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man, which consumers knew from their local arcades. This success led to a waterfall of companies trying to get a piece of the home gaming market pie, and a flood of poorly made games entered the market. Personal computers were the smarter choice for those families facing the difficult economic times of the early 80s. Because of these factors, the video game industry crashed, and many felt it may never recover.

Why is an over-40-year-old crash of a similar industry important? Gamification itself went through a similar downturn in the early 2010s. Points, badges, and leaderboards were being thrown on everything and the strategy was half-baked across many gamified products. Consumers were getting bored with it, and several tech strategists had tossed gamification out as a fad. The same could be said for the bursting of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s. Just because a company had a flashy new website, didn’t make it a wise investment. It is important to remember this as we learn gamification techniques. These are not band-aids for poor product design. And if implemented without understanding, they can be as detrimental as they are valuable.

The mid- to late 80s was when personal computers, gaming, and gamification hit their stride and really started to gain consumer traction. Technology was moving incredibly fast, and product design as an industry was growing right along with it. Many of the designers we look up to today shaped the industry during this timeframe: Dieter Rams, Don Norman, Alan Cooper, Jakob Nielsen, and more. Businesses were constantly searching for a way to give their experience a leg-up over the competition. Because of this, we saw the beginnings of many programs still running today. American Airlines was the first to offer a “frequent flyer” program, earning customers rewards for loyalty to their service. The hotel industry quickly followed suit and Holiday Inn became the first in that industry to do the same. Many restaurants already implemented some form of loyalty reward, but McDonald’s had another idea.

In 1987, it partnered with Hasbro and began a promotion using Monopoly intellectual property. Over the years, this promotion continued (last offered in 2019) and has been attributed to increasing McDonald’s sales during the promotion timeframe by as much as 5%. If you have never heard of this promotion, customers could receive game pieces by purchasing certain menu items, such as Big Macs, fries, and drinks, as well as certain promotional items, such as large sandwiches or value meals. The game offered customers the chance to win prizes by collecting game pieces that corresponded to properties on a Monopoly board.

In 1985, Nintendo revitalized an otherwise dying video game industry with the release of its Nintendo Entertainment System in the US. Requiring game publishers to meet the Nintendo Seal of Approval made sure that the games were of high quality, and that helped to earn consumer trust after it was lost during the earlier industry crash. By 1990, 30% of Americans had an NES in their homes. This created a generation of children that grew up on games. The acceptance and enjoyment of that industry go hand in hand with gamification techniques gaining any sort of traction.

Connectivity in game design

The growth of the technology industry during the 1990s and early 2000s was defined by connectivity. The birth of the internet and the drastic expanse of mobile phone ownership meant that users were only minutes away from communication with anyone in the world, and by the early 2000s, those minutes had become seconds. Although connected games had been around since 1978 (Multi-User Dungeon One, or MUD1), with the launch of online gaming platforms such as Xbox Live, friends could join each other across the globe to share these fun experiences and/or compete for bragging rights. The rise of social media during this time mirrored those same sentiments. Friends and family were breaking down geographic walls and interacting with one another in real time no matter where they were. The fact that we are social beings is no longer an afterthought and, with the new age of product design, that connectivity needs to be considered and planned from the start.

Products were being made for these new connected platforms. But for many people these activities were limited to work, school, or a home office where access to a connected PC was possible. But in a move that changed the world, Apple released the iPhone in 2007. What was previously tied to a desktop PC could now be done anywhere. As we saw with the video game industry in the late 70s, everyone was rushing to build apps for the new platform, and quality suffered because of it (and arguably still does). But the smartphone platform is alive and well, and consumers are ultra-conscious of the products they use on the platform. Engagement is key, and many of the most installed apps drive that engagement with some form of gamification. This may come in the form of the social aspect of apps such as TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat or the personal customization of products such as Spotify, YouTube, and Netflix. Many people prefer the sense of accomplishment and reward of applications such as Duolingo, Habitica, or Nike Training Club. All of these utilize some form of gamified design, and although it is rarely called by that name, consumers look for these types of experiences. And for us as product owners, the bottom line is that many studies have shown that it drives engagement, loyalty, and in turn revenue!

Key concepts in gamification

Gamification can be, and is often, used to describe many things. Sometimes, it is a distinct feature added to a product such as a progress tracker. But it can also be the use of subtle psychological cues to help nudge a user down a desired path such as offering a coupon for creating an account on an e-commerce platform. It could also be something bolder, such as a fast-food restaurant offering a scratch-off ticket that could reward you with anything from a free drink to a cash prize. Game design is all around us, and that becomes evident the second you start paying attention to it and looking for it. As more and more products adopt gamified techniques, the lines between what could be considered gamification and what is simply experience design become more and more blurred. But for the lessons in this book, most of what we now consider gamification techniques fall into one of five broad categories:

Reward systemsProgress trackingNarrative and storytellingSocial engagementGame psychology

Reward systems

Reward systems are likely the most common use of gamification today. Point redemption and punch cards are two very common ways to build reward systems. The most common version of this likely comes in the form of loyalty reward points. Almost every food and entertainment brand has its own loyalty program now, offering items as simple as free food to entries to win elaborate prizes. If you spend much time in the US Intermountain West, you might be familiar with the Maverick brand. These gas station/food stops offer a point system that allows you to spend smaller points on free food, or you can go big and enter to win some one-of-a-kind items, including branded trucks, RVs, and motorcycles. Systems such as this give the user a choice and make it feel more empowering as opposed to a simple “buy X get X free” system. One of the keys to implementing a well-received reward system is the use of surprise and delight. This approach involves surprising users with potentially unexpected rewards or experiences. When everything is a scheduled and predictable outcome, users can quickly become bored of the grind. By creating moments of surprise and delight, you can create a positive emotional connection with your users, which can lead to increased engagement and loyalty.

Progress tracking

Often paired with reward systems is the idea of progress tracking. This is the concept of showing users how far they have come and how much progress they have made. Games need to provide instant feedback to players on their actions as it is critical for keeping users informed, engaged, and motivated. The easiest software implementation might be to simply show a progress bar in a web form letting the users know how much of the form they have filled out, and what is left to go. By providing visual feedback on their progress, users are more likely to stay motivated and continue progressing toward the goal within your app or product. These systems can become significantly more complex than a percentage-complete visual. Prodigy is a math learning program for children that plays more like a role-playing video game than your standard math worksheet. By completing problems, you progress your character’s level. Within the system, you can always see how close you are to leveling up, and with each problem you solve, that meter grows. Children see that progress and are compelled to try just one more battle, then another, then maybe just one more. They want to see the reward at the end of the progression. Our sense of progress and accomplishment is incredibly powerful. Think about the last time you completed a large project at home or work. How did you feel? Did you reward yourself afterward?

Narrative and storytelling

One of the key components of most video games is strong narrative and storytelling that engages players and immerses them in a fictional world. Products can leverage similar elements to make more engaging and memorable experiences. Narrative can help to solidify the user’s sense of purpose and meaning and help them connect emotionally with the product. It has also been shown that humans retain information more effectively when it is delivered in a narrative format. Storytelling can also be used to explain complex features or concepts in a fun and engaging way. Epic Win is an app that uses fun and exciting stories and character development to help you with your daily routine. By completing the tasks you set up for yourself each day, you earn experience points (XP) that allow you to unlock things and progress on your own epic story. This continuation of the story motivates users to keep their streak alive. Can you remember the last show you binge-watched on your favorite streaming platform? Did you click Next Episode when you knew you had other stuff you could be doing? Our human interest in stories drives engagement and draws us in. What if we could binge our yardwork in the same way? What if the passion we had for the latest season of our favorite show translated into clearing out our overloaded inbox?

Social engagement

Games often have a strong social component. Sometimes, it is cooperative; other times, it is competitive. It can even be a simple sharing mechanic where the interaction is passive. Gameplay can take place online or in the same room. Product gamification can use social engagement mechanics in many of the same ways. User-generated content, sharing, and collaboration can be an easy way to foster a sense of community and social connection among users. You can tap into the power of social influence by creating social challenges or group activities. We have a natural desire for competition and cooperation. You can motivate users to stay engaged with your app or product by using features such as daily or weekly leaderboards. TikTok has grown to gigantic proportions using several social gamification techniques. To begin with, TikTok is simply a platform for hosting content and everything within is user generated. All of the videos you see have someone on the other end who decided they wanted to put that content into the world. Many of the videos that go viral on the platform tie heavily into social emotions such as humor, admiration, curiosity, and attraction. And with each social interaction you perform within the app (likes and shares), the algorithm gets more refined at knowing what you want to see. Do you have a favorite restaurant? Do you prefer to go to that restaurant alone, or share the experience with friends? Is it exciting to talk about the food and atmosphere with someone who has never been there? Our desire to share information and ideas to help others can be an incredibly powerful motivator.

Waze (2006)

Waze started with a single goal and statement: “Outsmarting Traffic, Together." At that point in history, driver assistance products were for singular users. Waze looked to disrupt that concept with the idea that if people worked together, they could make a better product that was always being updated by its own users. The idea inspired users to join together to make a better driving experience.

Give the Waze app a try. Use it for a trip to and from work, or on a road trip. Pay attention to the social cues the app gives you. Give other “Wazers” a honk as you pass by, report cars stopped on the shoulder of the road, or warn other drivers of a speed trap. That feeling you get when either helping other drivers or thanking a driver that helped you can be a rewarding experience!

Game psychology

After reading the aforementioned examples, you might be thinking that all of it could be considered psychology, and you’d be correct. In reality, nearly all design is psychology. Interface aesthetics rely heavily on psychological concepts such as the Gestalt principles. Marketing uses concepts such as scarcity and authority to drive the call to action. And product design is heavily tied to psychology of all kinds. Even though all gamification is centered around psychology, it is worth keeping a separate game psychology grouping as there are principles that may not be tied directly to one of the four above. For instance, the concept of flow, as written about by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, refers to a state of complete absorption and engagement in an activity, where people become fully immersed and lose track of time. In gaming, this occurs quite often, as users become so immersed in gameplay they even forget to eat and sleep. Csikszentmihalyi identified several key factors that can help foster the experience, including clear goals and feedback, a sense of control and autonomy, a feeling of challenge and skill, and a sense of immersion and focus. You can see a similar set of factors in the study of Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

In summary, the core concept of SDT is that humans are motivated by three basic psychological needs:

Autonomy: Autonomy refers to the desire to be in control of one’s own life and make choices that are consistent with our values and interestsCompetence: Competence is the desire to feel effective and capable in one’s actionsRelatedness: Relatedness refers to our need to feel connected to others and to experience a sense of belonging

According to this psychological theory, satisfying these three basic psychological needs can lead to greater intrinsic motivation, improved performance, and greater well-being. Free Rice is a quiz platform that allows you to earn rice for answering questions correctly. This rice is then donated to the World Food Program (technically, the monetary equivalent of the rice is donated since the charity itself can do more with money than sacks of rice). The educational platform had over 8 million users from 135 countries in 2022. There have been over 214 billion grains of rice donated to date! Users get nothing by participating other than a sense of competence and relatedness.

As you continue through the examples discussed and learn more about gamification, try and think about which of these areas each concept might fit. Usually, there is a little bit of crossover between a few of them.

Where gamification stands today

Over the years, gamification has been described in many ways. Some may view it as the future of product and software design, while others toss it to the side as just another gimmick. As you read this book, you may find that some of the examples speak to you, and others do not. That is one of the key lessons: every application and product is different. What might work for one doesn’t work for others. There is no real prescriptive application for gamification to any given product you might be working on.

Gamification ethics and planning

It is also important to remember that gamification can be used for both good and bad. Encouraging a user to eat more healthily by rewarding them with real-world items would likely be considered positive by most consumer standards. However, designing a system that encourages someone to pay more and more money for a slight chance of earning something valuable (such as a “loot box”) is bordering on gambling and can be incredibly psychologically addictive. Although, in the short term, consumers may like that serotonin hit when they get something big, over the long term, they will grow increasingly weary of these types of systems. It is up to us as product designers, user experience designers, programmers, and marketers to be responsible in the way we use these tools.

Gamification also has its own set of limitations. Adding a leaderboard and/or a point system to a problem does not fix the problem; it is not a miracle cure. Implementing gamified design needs to be done intelligently and with an understanding of your users, team, and product. The types of game elements used affect the outcome differently. In a 2017 research article titled “How gamification motivates: An experimental study of the effects of specific game design elements on psychological need satisfaction,” the researchers found that varying the specific types of elements could yield statistically significant changes to behaviors and the perception of user’s tasks (source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321630855X). This means that simply adding gamification for the sake of it may create more problems than good if not applied properly. Gamification aside, when design is rushed, any application is destined to fail and no amount of high scores can change that. These types of features are also rarely added after the fact and made to be successful. Implementing some of these systems and working the psychology into your designs takes foresight. This must be planned from the onset, not just a feature you get to down the road when your numbers are not hitting the target you expected.

Industry acceptance

Despite these