Impact of gamification on user experience

By Thomas O. Ajayi

Introduction

The Entertainment Software Association(ESA) reported in 2016 that 65% of US households are home to at least one person who plays more than 3 hours of video games every week.
The success of digital games in the entertainment industry has made product owners and designers of non-game digital products turn to learning from digital games in order to understand what makes them engage the players and success in order to apply the same knowledge to improve not only improve the user experience of their products but also to make them enjoyable.

Interestingly, academicians and user experience design practitioners alike have researched what makes games successful and how to implement them to motivate and engage users of digital products that are non-games to interact more with the products and improve overall user experience. This concept of applying game-like elements  to non-game situations, with the goal of motivating and engaging users is now popularly referred to as “Gamification”.Popular game-like elements used in gamification are leaderboard, avatar, points and badges.

Surprisingly, my recent research into understanding the impact of gamification on user experience showed both the positive and negative influence of gamification on users as opposed to the assumption that gamification is only full of positive rewards. Below are the highlights of the positives and negatives effects of gamification on user experience and how to apply gamification to support more positive user experience in digital products  based on the insights from academic researches of Hammedi et al. , Koivisto & Hamari and Vanroy & Zaman and user experience design practitioners

The positive effects of gamification on user experience

1. It enhances users' motivation to interact with products:

   
   

Vanroy & Zaman researched the effects of rewards with  game elements of badges, points and leaderboard on university students in Belgium based on their participation in a Google+ community created for a course. Analysis of the students' response to online surveys and focus groups confirmed that the rewards they get based on their participation either as individual or group on the Google+ community motivated them to interact with the Online community more.

2. It boosts users' engagement and focus:

   
   

Hammedi et al  found out that gamified health care helps patients focus all their attention on the activity that they are performing. A practical example was the case of when patients used the Vr4Child app (a game-like application designed to relax children to ensure that they will remain calm during medical procedures), their engagement helped them to not focus on the nurses’ and therapists’ actions. Thereby helping the medical practitioners to perform their procedures without the interruption of the kids(patients).

2. It helps transform boring/tedious activities into more exciting and entertaining ones: 
   

   
   

Through the implementation of Wii Fit Plus- an innovative technology that allows patients to improve their balance through challenges such as a snowboarding simulation or walking on a tight, patients with various medical problems, such as the amputation of a limb, a stroke were report by Hammedi et al. reported to continually improve their physical exercise and to work harder to reach their limits. Without this gamified solution, such patients could find exercise which supports their healing process boring.

The negative effects of gamification on user experience

1. It can encourage users to cheat to get rewards: This was seen in the study by Vanroy & Zaman as students were reported to repeatedly perform the behaviour for which they were already rewarded in order to receive more badges.

2. The enjoyment and usefulness of gamification can decline with time Thereby leading to abandonment of the products where gamification is implemented: This negative effects is shown in the study of Koivisto & Hamari on the users perceived benefits of fitocracy where the younger user demography found the online fitness coach marketplace useful when they start tracking their daily fitness achievement using fitocracy application but after some times, they do not find the rewards they get for tracking their fitness motivating again. 

3. Gamified platforms can become addition for users: Lilith & Tamm reported some digital products especially social media e.g Facebook, youtube or Twitter implemented  gamification using Pull-to-refresh feature to see new posts continuously and the users might be attached to the social media because of the gamification experience. Thereby spending their productive time on the applications.

How digital product owners and user  designers can implement gamification to enhance positive user experience

The negative effects of gamification on user experience highlighted above has shown that integration of game elements in digital elements is not always motivating, engaging or sustainable. The question is now how do product owners and or user experience designers implement gamification to support positive effects while the negative effects are reduced or removed. Scholars and design practitioners proposed that using the Yu-kai Chou behavioural framework named “Octalysis” shown in the Figure 1 below could help in designing gamification for good.

Figure 1:  Yu-kai Chou behavioural framework. Source

The proposition is that one can easily understand what drives users' motivation using this framework and that subsequently will guide the game elements used in the gamification process.

Below are the highlights of what the 8 drivers of human motivation in the behavioural  framework stands for.
Meaning: means that users believe that the meaning of what they do is more important than the thing itself, giving a sense of self-mission.
Accomplishment: means the progress and new skills gained by users when they complete things.

Empowerment: providing creative channels for users to take initiative.
Ownership: means users’ ability to own and control things. 

Social influence: users’ interconnection with other users.
Scarcity: means that some things can be owned by only some users. 

Unpredictability: means mobilising users’ curiosity by showing limited things.
Avoidance: means showing the disadvantages of bad events, and users will choose to avoid losses. More details about this can be found here.

In addition to using the above framework as a guide while designing gamification to tailor the game elements based on the motivation factor(s) of users, designers it could also be helpful for designers to monitor products for side effects( i.e choosing which behaviours to encourage, figuring out how to measure those behaviors, and ensuring that the metric being tracked reliably correlates to the behavior that is wanted) and Set engagement limits. For example a mobile app can be designed to  automatically disable  notifications if a user is driving or remind the user to take screen to avoid distractions that can lead to accidents.

Conclusion
Considering the benefits of the gamification in digital products highlighted in this article and the quest for businesses and user experience designers to compete in the digital era to gain users attention and get them glued to their products,  one can say that  the strategy of gamification has come to stay.
A cue can be taken by product owners and designers alike from the successful implementations of gamification or the proposed fireworks from academics and industry
However, it is important to note that no one size fits all framework or guidelines to implement gamification successfully. Instead more research into who the users are, what the users want to achieve with the use of the product and the game elements that match the users types are needed in order to design digital products where gamification enhances positive user experience.