Nowadays, focusing on users, creating more emotional resonance that makes the user experience good and creates pleasant emotional resonance has become a major trend in Internet product design at present. Using gamified design principles and design mechanisms in UX design can enable users to improve their sense of participation and stay on the page for a longer time. This article has conducted an inventory of the design principles and design mechanisms of gamification in UX design, hoping to inspire you.
is user-centered and strives to create products that are highly responsive to user needs. It has become the underlying logic of many innovative products. Therefore, modern Internet product design is no longer limited to pursuing the beauty of static and interface design, but hopes that users can resonate with each other in the comprehensive aspects of emotions and other aspects during the use of the product. for example: pleasant, more challenging, applied, interesting...
gamification is a concept of applying good design (principles, mechanisms, elements, etc.) in the game to a non-game environment. Gamified design has been proven in the commercialization practice of more than ten years that it can improve user participation and experience to a certain extent.
uses gamified design principles and design mechanisms in UX design, which has become a 1+12 superposition and amplification effect, making the product interesting and enjoyable in user use.
Next, we will use two articles to introduce: the commonly used game design principles and mechanisms in UX, as well as successful cases of the application of these gamification methods.
1. Commonly used game design principles in UX design
1. Target/Purpose
Having clearly defined goals makes it easier for users to complete their experience journey. The goal can be used as (phase) guidance to tell them what actions they will take next if they want to get rewards in the end, and what rewards they will receive after all these actions are achieved.
Note, make sure that the goals you set have rewards that are comparable to the difficulty of the task to encourage users to pursue future goals provided to them.
2. Rules
gamified design must have rules. This is a small loop operation that you want the user to repeat and continuously perform, and it is the core way to achieve phased goals. They should be designed based on what your product offers.
3. Feedback
regularly reminds users how close they are to their goals and will motivate them to keep moving forward. Remember to provide instant feedback on every effective behavior of the user, no matter how big or small. By providing feedback at each step and rewarding users when completing tasks, users will gain a sense of progress and achievement.
4. Reward
Active reinforcement is a reliable way to develop habits. In our design, the behavior that generates rewards is likely to be repeated, and repeated positive small loops are an important factor in success in gamified design. At the same time, providing multiple reward types can make it easier to maintain users’ drive external motivations for a long time. The reward design in
products usually appears in the form of points or in-app currency. If the reward in the design is an item outside the application, to a considerable extent, the user's activity and retention will decrease.
5. Motivation
Motivation is also called "intrinsic motivation", " self-drive ", which is what prompts users to take action. Intrinsic motivation is often driven by curiosity or sense of accomplishment, while external motivation can be driven by external rewards such as achievement or currency. Only a gamified design that is driven by both internal motivation and external motivation can enable users to participate truly and have the best experience. With internal driving alone, it is difficult to make users persist for a long time. With external driving alone, it is very likely that users will develop pathological addiction and non-positive and positive experience acquisition.
6. Select Free
The system becomes interesting only when the user voluntarily chooses to participate, abide by the rules and move towards the goal. This is also why it is so important to help users tap into their own intrinsic motivations for participation. Forced to participate or deceived to participate will make gamifications useless.
7. Failed free
punishes failed users and makes them hesitant about further participation in the future.However, if you want the product experience to be more like a fun game, the inclusion of the game elements should be friendly enough to keep users engaged regardless of success or failure.
2. Common game mechanisms used in UX design
1. Challenge
Humanity always allows us to challenge and prove that we have the ability to handle them. Therefore, the challenge is considered one of the most compelling game elements. It can quickly inspire people to take action and is an excellent tool to improve the user experience. In order to enhance the challenge effect, it is a good idea to use some kind of reward to match in the design, which can stimulate users' motivation to participate.
For example: KEEP provides time-limited challenge activities on its app to maintain user engagement.
2. Points
In order to measure the success of players, many games use points as a value evaluation system. Points first allow users to see and measure their achievements, while others can estimate how much users engage in a website or app.
Duolingo (Duolingohtml) can be called a gamification master of language learning, and it is also because it fully utilizes most of the potential of in-app currency (points): by allowing users to win consecutively, double rewards and other "sexy" operations, it reduces the time for unlocking at a higher level. What is cultivated is the excess learning time of users who insist on learning every day (users need to obtain points continuously, and a considerable number of people need to practice repeatedly to achieve it. Therefore, the user's skill learning time is longer, which increases the user's learning time in disguise, and may also create "flow" for users.)
3. Medals and stickers
When users complete challenges or collect a certain number of points, they can be used to redeem medals or stickers. This virtual reward is often used in electronic games. Stickers were deeply loved by users before they became popular on the Internet. In the Web 2.0 era, medals and stickers were just moved from offline to online and further connected more closely with offline.
In addition, medals and stickers can also be used as honor symbols when product innovative features are launched, and this reward can often become an additional driving force to inspire users. For example, Toonie's alarm clock sticker, Zhihu 's annual medal, etc.
4. Ranking
What makes people interested in challenges is competition. Nothing motivates users more than the desire to be a winner. A list of players in the order of "who gets more medals (or points)" can boost user motivation. But if the top-ranked people get rid of too many others, most users may lose motivation due to the huge gap. Therefore, when we design, we need to carefully apply this game element or conduct reasonable commercial data deductions on its application.
5. Progress bar and user journey
This game mechanism is designed to make the interaction process with the product as visual and simple as possible. This mechanism integrates product design, which makes users feel like they are real players and start their personal journey of product use. For example, starting with the first document the user reads, the company provides them with necessary features introductions so that users don’t stagnate when they are afraid of making mistakes. As the user's journey deepens further, users have more and more experience in using products, and designers can reveal more and more achievements and skills to motivate users to continue to explore.
LinkedIn Use color psychology and scene-based titles to take the progress bar to a whole new level, allowing users to continue to move forward during the experience, just like people continue to explore in the game.
6. Constraint
When there are sufficient constraints, the gamification effect is best. Just like the limited-time activities in the game make the tasks more interesting, set a specific window for users to complete the challenges on the platform. Constraints make people react faster and somehow motivate them to act here and now.
For example, the activity countdown design of the Berlin Night App (increasing user urgency); Duolingo's winning streak is interrupted, and daily rewards will be reduced accordingly.
gamification is a relatively new concept. Combined with user experience (UX) design, it has also continuously emerged as an effective design method. Therefore, the popularity of gamification is growing rapidly and being applied to practice by more designers.
Author: Li Jingyu, WeChat public account: Gamification Test Field, current operation director of Fantai Geek
This article was originally published by @ViWaViWa. Everyone is a product manager. Reproduction is prohibited without the author's permission.
question picture comes from Unsplash and is based on the CC0 protocol.
The views in this article only represent the author himself, Renren are both product managers and only provide information storage space services.
