The 5 core tenets of highly engaging gamification v1 · The 5 core tenets of highly engaging...

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The 5 core tenets of highly engaging gamification

Transcript of The 5 core tenets of highly engaging gamification v1 · The 5 core tenets of highly engaging...

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The 5 core tenets of highly engaging gamification

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The 5 core tenets of highly engaging gamification

HARNESS “BEHAVIORAL MOTIVATION” TO CREATE A SUSTAINED BOOST IN BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

Does the placement of leader boards, badges, points, levels & rewards onto an existing business process boost performance for the long-term? The answer is absolutely and unequivocally “no”!

Early "gamification" platforms promised that the addition of simple game mechanics (e.g. points, badges and leaderboards) to websites and applications would create a sustained increase in motivation and engagement, drive behavioral change and as a result boost business performance.

However, this approach does not create long-term user engagement, nor does it drive the adoption of best practice habits. At best, this approach creates a short-term spike in engagement that rapidly tails off with the behaviors you were originally attempting to change soon returning.

To create a sustained level of engagement requires us to delve into the science of “behavioral motivation”. There is much that can be learnt from the world of consumer gamification, where users are being successfully engaged and motivated to participate in problem solving en masse and in virtual worlds.

A number of organizations are already successfully applying this approach in the workplace. These leaders have proven gamification to be a considerably more powerful approach than current motivational techniques, using it to tap into the very core of what really motivates employees. As witnessed at G4S, the results can be startling.

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G4S CASE STUDYBy deploying gamification to motivate their sales

teams G4S realized:

• 30% increase in user adoption• 60% growth in qualified pipeline• 35% increase in the capture of new contacts• 86% increase in sales performance

Gamification TopWin

Nudge

Motivate

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To harness this new approach requires a solid understanding of human behavior. It is a very different approach from the existing methods of workplace motivation and it requires us to open our minds to concepts that might at first feel counter intuitive!

The purpose of this white paper is to outline 5 of the core tenets that require careful consideration when implementing gamification. However, rather than just focusing on “gamification theory”, the intention is to also provide practical tips that will help to drive engagement and success over the long term.

The 5 tenets of highly engaging gamification are:

1. Understand the profile of your audience2. Make it easy to learn and difficult to master3. Make it a pleasurable learning experience by creating a balanced “Flow”4. Build “positive emotions” into your user engagement 5. Embrace intrinsic motivators - autonomy, mastery & purpose

1. UNDERSTAND THE PROFILE OF YOUR AUDIENCE

Any audience is likely to possess fundamentally different motivational characteristics within it. You need to consider these differences when thinking about the engagement dynamics for your business applications. It is vital that you understand each aspect of these characteristics if you really want to entice your user’s involvement.

Early game researcher, Professor Richard A Bartle created the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology. A series of questions and scoring that classifies players into categories of behavioral profiles:

★ Socializers who play games for the social aspect, rather than the actual game itself, gaining enjoyment from interacting with others or achieving as a team.

★ Explorers who prefer discovering and learning about new areas. ★ Achievers who prefer to accumulate points, levels, badges and other measurements of

success in a game.★ Killers who thrive on competition with other players, and prefer competing directly with

them to be the winner.

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To create long-term engagement, we need to think about how to successfully communicate with users. It is vital to establish a common language, starting with a list of verbs that describe the motivations for the audience profile that we are attempting to engage. For example:

★ Socializers might summon “collaborate”, “share”, “help” or “exchange”.★ Explorers might evoke “search”, “read”, “view”, “collect” or “complete”.★ Achievers bring to mind verbs such as “win”, “top”, “challenge” or “pass”.★ Killers might bring forth verbs such as “beat”, “brag”, “fight”, “taunt”.

SUCCESS TIPS

1. Identify in advance your audience’s behavioral profile(s).2. List out the words that your audience will identify most strongly with and will best

describe their motivations.3. Ensure these words are reflected in:

i. Every communication you use, across all channels.ii. The challenges & contests that you issue.iii. The rewards that you offer.

4. Make it personal:i. Make challenges relevant to the individual, their role and the tasks they are

performing.ii. Nudge users at the point they are actually taking action. This includes the ability

to nudge on mobile devices, making it even more relevant to the user in terms of the timing of the delivery of the challenge.

5. Baseline your users current behaviors and create a data point from which progress can be measured.

In a nutshell, design every interaction to match your users specific behavioral characteristics.

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Collaborate TopWin

Share

Complete

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2. MAKE IT EASY TO LEARN AND DIFFICULT TO MASTER

Consumer games have taught us that “learning” is a key motivator that keeps people hooked and coming back for more. Think of this as the difference between a loyalty program and an engaging game. At no point are you learning anything by participating in a loyalty program, you are just collecting points and rewards for your actions which in itself is not particularly engaging. A truly engaging experience increases your cognitive learning, the outcome that we crave the most; a sense of personal achievement.

★ Novice1. This stage requires participants to learn the ropes; to understand what is required

of them. 2. Expect this to require a number of weeks. Clear progression and easy to

consume steps that lead to fast rewards are key.

★ Expert 1. By this stage users have learnt the ropes, understand the boundaries and crave

fresh content, activities and challenges in order to maintain their attention. 2. Levels & points will of course help, but you need fresh and deeper challenges to

keep engagement high.

★ Master 1. By this stage you have created “Enthusiasts” or “Masters”. 2. This profile requires exclusivity, recognition and impact. 3. Consider separating them into a winner’s circle or into guilds that demonstrate to

peers their standing. 4. Consider mechanisms by which you can harness their energy, feeding it back

into the system to help elevate others.

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SUCCESS TIPS

There are (at least) 3 stages in any audience’s lifecycle. You will need to make sure that your engagement dynamics are sympathetic to your user’s needs as they progress through these stages.

1. Make it easy to learn: create an “on boarding” experience that fosters a fast sense of achievement by creating an initial set of challenges and rewards that are easy to engage with and that deliver rapid rewards.

2. Make it hard to master: as the user engagement progresses and deepens, the complexity of challenges should also increase. As a result, the delivery of rewards, points and badges should decelerate making it harder to achieve mastery but increasing the sense of achievement as a result.

3. MAKE IT A PLEASURABLE LEARNING EXPERIENCE BY CREATING A BALANCED FLOW

Games are highly engaging because the player’s experience and expertise change over time and in meaningful ways. Such games give just the right amount of challenge and learning to keep the player engaged and on the edge of their ability. In short, games are compelling because they are a pleasurable learning experience - they offer up skills to master, and reward you with greater challenges and opportunities.

It is essential to increase the degree of challenge as a user increases their skill and confidence. This is known as creating a balanced “Flow”.

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If you make the challenges too easy (or simply repeat the same old challenges) the user will experience boredom and disengage. If you make the challenges too hard the user will experience anxiety and again disengage.

The previous diagram shows how, from active participation over time, the user gains experience and skills. However, the degree of challenge issued to them must also keep pace and increase over time in order to avoid the user disengaging and slipping out of the “flow channel”.

SUCCESS TIPS

The trick to creating sustained engagement is:

1. For complex challenges, consider breaking them down into a series of steps, which allow the users to reach the end outcome without it appearing too daunting at the outset.

2. Keep it tightly focused, don’t be tempted to motivate lots of different behaviors at once. Pick 2 or 3 and introduce more over time as the skill and confidence levels increase.

3. Lastly, consider introducing additional game mechanics (as well as additional challenges) over time. Avoid giving everything away up-front!

4. BUILD “POSITIVE EMOTIONS” INTO YOUR USER ENGAGEMENT

In this context think of “user engagement” as the series of steps that you need to take in order to create the sustained engagement levels that will drive the outcomes you seek.

Positive emotion(what we want users to feel -

fun, trust, delight, pride)

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Call to action(compete, share, help, collaborate)

Engagement(challenge, task, mission)

Progress(points, rewards, badges, messages, leader boards

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SUCCESS TIPS

1. Design different engagement loops for each of the three stages of player lifecycle previously mentioned (Novice, Expert & Master), as the engagement requirements at each stage are very different.

2. Carefully prepare all communications in advance, design them to convey a positive experience, one that is about learning and progression, as this will drive enhanced results.

3. Ensure that participants are rewarded in an appropriate way and at the appropriate time that reflects both their behavioral profile and is proportionate to the actions they have taken.

4. Participants should be regularly reminded about what they have learnt and why. Opportunities to apply recently learned cognitive skills should be made readily available, with additional rewards provided for extending these newly acquired skills.

5. EMBRACE INTRINSIC MOTIVATORS - AUTONOMY, MASTERY & PURPOSE

This again is an area where we need to break down traditional thinking that financial rewards are the best and only motivator. As demonstrated by Dan Pink in his book “Drive”, in the case of complex cognitive tasks the reverse can actually be true.

Pink asserts that there are in fact 3 main behavioral motivation drivers:

1. Autonomy: The desire to direct our own lives.2. Mastery: The urge to get better at something that matters to us.3. Purpose: (or Belonging) The desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

If you can design your user engagement to tap into these intrinsic motivational drivers you will discover that they are in fact FAR more powerful than extrinsic drivers such as points, levels or financial rewards.

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Intrinsic Motivations (typically have depth and meaning)

Extrinsic Motivations(shallower in nature)

Autonomy Points

Mastery Levels

Purpose (Belonging) Badges

Power Leader Boards

Meaning Prizes

Learning Financial Rewards

Self-Knowledge Gold Stars

Fun Progress Bars

SUCCESS TIPS

1. Extrinsic motivators are great for simple cognitive tasks, but they alone will not allow you to achieve sustained motivation. This only comes when something (e.g. learning new skills) is so important to you that it acts as the motivator to keep you coming back.

2. Intrinsic motivators are by far the most powerful. For example, “Meaning” may motivate you. As such, it is likely that insight into how your actions are contributing to the success of a greater team or corporate goal will be highly motivational to you. Designing user interactions to tap into intrinsic motivations is therefore an imperative for long-term success.

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SUMMARY

A successful gamification approach in the business world requires that we learn from what has happened in consumer gaming. Simply adding game mechanics such as points, badges and leader boards will not drive enduring engagement or best practice processes and in turn will not drive a sustained increase in business performance.

Success requires all of the following factors:

1. A good understanding of your audience’s motivation profile and how you will tap into their key intrinsic motivations.

2. The carefully considered use of game mechanics, dynamics and content that caters for an engagement journey spanning at least 12 months out.

3. Marketing communication content that highlights the positive emotions and is well tuned to the audience profile.

4. The discipline to regularly review, tune and refresh the behavioral engagement content to make sure it continually taps into people’s natural desire for autonomy, mastery & purpose.

Only then will you see success and deliver a sustained increase in business performance.

Interested to learn more? Read some of our other white papers:

• CRM 10 Steps to Success• Gamification 101• The Real Guide for Using Gamification to Boost Business Performance• The Compelling Financial Case for CRM Gamification• Money - is it the Only Motivator?

Read more about SuMo for Salesforce

Alternatively try SuMo for Salesforce free with our 30-day trial

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ABOUT CLOUDAPPS

PEOPLE POWERED PERFORMANCE

CloudApps increases business performance by motivating and measuring behavioral change.

SuMo for Salesforce accelerates achievement of CRM KPI’s and increases user adoption using the power of game mechanics & dynamics.

SuMo motivates user behavior through concepts that include in-line nudges, points, badges and leader boards for individuals & teams.

SuMo is the only solution built 100% on the Force.com platform that is delivered with the SuMo Pulse service. SuMo Pulse combines CRM best-practice behavior nudges & marketing communications content with regular tuning & content refresh reviews.

CloudApps is already in use by 250 customers, including blue-chip organizations such as G4S, Qlik, Lush, Tesco, AMEC, EE, ERM, LA Fitness, Sears, TUI Travel, Brooks and Salesforce.com.

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CloudApps Ltd2 Winnersh Fields

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+44 (0) 1784 895036

[email protected]