Transform boring tasks into engaging experiences.

Photo by Lorenzo Herrera on Unsplash

Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage and motivate people to complete tasks or achieve specific goals. Gamification is a human-focused design that places human motivation at its center. Yu-Ka Chou explains this further in his article, — The Octalysis Framework for Gamification and Behavioral Design."

This practice is focused on increasing engagement by providing the user with a sense of accomplishment upon task completion through rewards or points, thus compelling the user to repeat the task to get more rewards and perks. This keeps the user engaged by repeating the task again and again to earn more rewards!

One of the most significant benefits of gamification is its ability to tap into our innate desire for completion, achievement, and recognition. Rewards and instant feedback motivate individuals to push themselves further and achieve more than they might have thought possible.

Gamification takes all the fun and engaging elements found in games and applies them to keep users engaged. And has become a very important tool for businesses, educators, and organizations to boost engagement, increase productivity, and promote learning.

Here’s how Google Pay has used gamification to make sure its user experience is more engaging and rewarding:

Scratch cards: The app offers scratch cards to users upon completing transactions. Users can scratch the cards to reveal rewards.

Image by EWD

Stamps: Google Pay offers stamps to users who complete specific tasks or make purchases. Users can collect stamps to unlock rewards.

Lucky Fridays: Google Pay offers Lucky Fridays to users, where users can earn rewards for making transactions on Fridays.

Levels and achievements: The app offers levels and achievements to users for completing specific tasks (payment) or milestones. Users can earn badges and trophies for reaching certain levels or achievements, which makes the experience more engaging and rewarding.

Personalized offers: The app makes sure to provide the user with personalized offers, discounts, and cash-backs on specific purchases or transactions, which can incentivize users to continue using the service.

(rewards may include cashback, discounts, or entries into contests)

Emotional triggers:

Emotional triggers are a powerful tool in gamification, as they can create a sense of excitement, engagement, and motivation in users.

Emotional triggers are essentially gestures or interactions that regulate or evoke an emotional response from users, such as a feeling of accomplishment or satisfaction. Achievement drives motivation, thus encouraging users’ engagement to earn more rewards.

Let’s take an example of another application.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the popular game, Fruit Ninja! a game where the player’s goal is to slice as many fruits as possible. We have all loved playing this game in multiplayer to compete with our friends and family members.

Here are some of the emotional triggers we see in Fruit Ninja:

1. Slicing fruit: The act of slicing fruit is simple and so satisfying! Every time we slice a fruit, we hear the ever-so-familiar sound effect and the points (rewards) earned. The slicing action is carried out by the swipe gesture on the screen, which evokes an emotional trigger from real-life experience.
2. Combos: When we slice multiple fruits without missing or dropping a single one, we earn a combo multiplier, which increases the points earned for each slice, creating a sense of excitement and motivation for us to continue slicing!
3. Power-ups and high scores: Power ups are special abilities (rewards) that we earn by slicing specific fruits. The act of earning and using a power-up creates a sense of excitement and control. Unlocking these becomes an achievement seeking task. To fulfill this need and to be known or seen, fruit ninjas use leaderboards to display their rank to the world. The game creates a sense of competition and an urge to beat your previous record or even compete with friends.

In real life, there are many such gestures that evoke an emotional response, including high-fiving someone, receiving a compliment, or achieving a personal goal. These emotional triggers can create a sense of connection, accomplishment, and motivation for people.

Games drive human behavior: The game industry was the first to master Human-Focused design, and that is where we get the name gamification

Yu-kai Chou: Gamification & Behavioral Design.

The Octalysis Framework:

Yu-Kai Chou has presented a complete gamification framework. The Octalysis Framework is designed as an octagon with 8-Core Drives represented on each side.

Image by Yu-kai Chou: Gamification & Behavioral Design

Conclusion: By incorporating gamification elements, we can create a more engaging and rewarding user experience. Users are incentivized to complete tasks, collect rewards, and earn tokens, which increase their engagement with and loyalty to the service. The use of personalized offers can provide users with a sense of exclusivity, which can further enhance the user experience.

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