Gamification has been around for a long time now, and businesses are taking advantage. In this blog series I will explain what gamification is, why it is important and how you can use it.
Introduction
If you go to a webpage, changes are that there is a form of gamification present. Take LinkedIn for instance, it uses gamification to make sure their users are actively engaged with the platform. When creating an account on LinkedIn, you have to fill in your personal information. This process is tracked by a progress bar. With every piece of information you fill in, the bar slowly progresses. The goal is to totally fill in the bar. By using a progress bar, LinkedIn stimulates its users to fill in more information than necessary. They are successful since most people cannot stand it if the progress bar is not reaching 100%. This is an example of gamification. I will try to explain gamification a little more in the following blog series.
Gamification might be a new term, but the principle has been around for at least hundred years (Zichermann, 2011). The army for instance uses game techniques to train new recruits. Gamification has become popular for businesses as well (Zichermann, 2011). Companies such as Starbucks and IKEA use gamification to ensure customers come to their business. Starbucks for example uses a punch card where consumers can safe up for a free coffee or other freebies. And IKEA gives discounts to families in their restaurants.
Definition
Gamification is the application of game thinking and game techniques outside the gaming context. The users involvement and experience will be improved. People become more and more addicted to playing games so in order to engage customers, rewarding structures must be considered. These rewarding structures could be through positive affirmations and subtle feedback. Using gaming techniques could, if done properly, align your motivations with the intrinsic motivation of your desired consumers. Intrinsic motivation is the underlying reason for doing something.
Keep the following in mind
Keep in mind that gamification cannot improve a bad product. Neither can it improve a bad organisational process. But it could better a product or process. It is therefore important to first look at what gamification could mean for a company. Thereby, behaviour of employees should be analysed to see what they are willing to do to achieve business objectives. Keep in mind that multiple behaviours can lead to completing one objective.
The intrinsic motivation of an user should also be taken into consideration. The ‘Player Types’ model of Mr. Bartle is used to determine the behaviour of the user. Read more on that model in the next blog.
