How can you incorporate gamification into e-learning design without sacrificing usability?

One of the biggest mistakes in the use of gamification is the belief that a gamified course will automatically be great! However, before integrating gamification into an educational course, it is crucial to understand how it will impact indicators of engagement in learning, the processing level of educational materials, and the application of acquired knowledge in practice. Only after this analysis can we proceed to the stage of selecting gaming elements.

Clearly defining learning objectives are a critical first step to authentic gamification. Understanding what you want your learners to achieve, if that achievement is relevant to their overall experience, and if that achievement is aligned with the overall intention of your learning objectives will help you tailor gamification elements and optimize the learning experience.

It’s definitely the first step and the most important one. Gamification isn’t about adding crossword puzzles, riddles, jeopardy or chutes and ladders style games etc. It’s about using game elements to serve your learning objectives. I see way too often quizzes advertised as gamified experiences because people added a ??space invader?? interaction between two questions. You design your gamified activities based on your learning objectives. You encourage your learners to act in a way that serves the learning objectives.

Including gamefication in the planning process, is a great tool to transition from objective to objective, check for learning, encourage participation and team building. The routine of types of games partnered with the strategic timing of when they occur keeps students engaged. It also a great tool, depending on the tool you are using to get a formative evaluation of student learning in real time that can dictate the direction you take in the moment with your lesson.

Gamification can be integrated into e-learning without compromising usability and dynamics. This involves utilizing proven methods from games to enhance user engagement and promote desired behaviors in e-learning applications. Moreover, gamification strategies can be applied to the creation of language teaching materials, utilizing both intrinsic and extrinsic gamification techniques and tools to involve students in the learning journey. Furthermore, the development of e-learning systems based on gamification will boost student engagement and motivation, particularly in subjects like programming, by incorporating elements of games, mechanics, and critical thinking. Personalization also plays a crucial role in gamification design.

Relevance, effectiveness, and purpose can all be evaluated and informed by your users, learners, and customers. Be careful not to force game elements that do not resonate with your users just for the sake of slick or fancy game design. The elements must be valuable and that value must be defined by users.

Maintain a balance between the goal and the game element! If you've decided to use elements such as earning points, ratings, and leaderboards, make sure that your learning is not saturated with competition. This can lead to a shift in students' focus from "learning" to "being first," which, in turn, may result in less attention to educational materials and a decrease in the quality of their processing. Yes, you may have more active students and faster course completion. But do we want to sacrifice the quality of learning for the sake of speed and quantity?

A tutorial can also help learners discover how to navigate the module. You can also add new elements as the module progresses: this way, you avoid overloading the learners with too many informations from the beginning.

Usability and accessibility are two pillars of design that should anchor your gamification choices and implementation. Ensure you conduct usability tests, prototype and collect feedback from actual users, and turn those user insights into meaningful navigation action and design improvements. If your game is not intuitive or accessible, your engagement will be negatively impacted, and the whole point behind implementing games will then be nullified.

4 important points when working with Design for Usability are: 1. The student knows the rules: Create a tutorial or guide where the student will understand, "What is the reward, and what are the conditions for obtaining it?" 2. The student understands the interface: Develop a convenient and intuitive navigation system that fosters an understanding of how to navigate within the course and accomplish assigned tasks. 3. Comfortable visualization and text for the student: Adhere to standards when selecting and creating multimedia and text formats. 4. The student knows what to do in case of course non-completion or issues: Provide a step-by-step guide on what to do if an error occurs during the course.

I have a strong tendency to steer our team towards usability with simplicity. Being an adult might seem different than a child yet the concept of simplicity, baby steps, good experience and minimal obstacles is a fundamental part of building online education experience. To maintain simplicity and obtain clarity breaking the topic in no more than 3 pieces of vital information per “learning element” is our basic strategy.

Gamify e-learning to motivate, not distract. Directly align gaming elements to learning goals and use them judiciously at key points. Keep the interface clear and intuitive. Leverage gaming psychology thoughtfully, not complexity. Test prototypes to ensure gamification increases engagement without sacrificing learning efficacy.

Balance is key to engage learners. - Boosters/power ups may help when some of them are stuck and need a little bit of help. - Additional practice that is only mandatory for learners who struggled with the material and optional for those who succeeded and don’t need to spend more time on a specific subject.

I would only add to this statement that addressing different levels in asynchronous learning can be challenging but doable with content that is both variable (something for everyone) and offers depth that the learner can choose. Important to add is that in online education it is not hard to offer more to those who want it and less to those who already struggle with the basics - which is no problem, because you can also easily offer more time to grasp the concepts - win win.

Based on the learner's behavior and personal preferences, feedback can also propose a challenge to inspire or motivate the learner. Feedback should always be positive or encouraging for learner. In a learning environment, feedback must be continuous and allow the student to configure how often they want to receive feedback. This provides the student an opportunity to choose how often they would want to receive feedback and learn from that feedback.

When you study scenarios like Telltale games does, you can see that they are pretty linear but the players feel like their choices matter which is much more important. Acknowledging their choices and referencing them later on while still keeping some kind of karma score that will have an impact on their ending might be enough. Sometimes there is no need to overdo it. Customization like avatars etc gives the learners a sense of ownership which helps them feel more engaged.

In my experience adding social interactions is extremely valuable but it seems as tho it is more important to the educator than to the student. Our professional courses have comments and communication available in every single lesson yet the activity is fairly low. We see it as something that is hard to trigger - probably in some professional environments just as hard as getting a comment or question from a real audience. We however have very high percentage of answers to built in survey type of content giving us a feeling that interaction in professional online education should be guided at first or at least until the social aspect of such community matures to a point where people are happy to participate e.g. like in classic forums.

Continuous learning is not just a tip for learners, it's a tip for learning designers, too. Ensure the design of your games incorporate feedback to learners about their progress and support some level metacognitive application. Consider encouraging learners to inquire about WHY the game is being introduced, WHAT they are achieving or mastering, and HOW they can continue to improve. Also ensure that continuous learning is brought back into the design process for iteration and optimization. Designs (and game design) can go stale if left unattended, which can negatively impact engagement. Setting up your games to capture data and feedback on its effectiveness and impact on achieving a learning outcome can help you make informed improvements.

Too often gamification is an afterthought sprinkled on content to make it more appealing. Instead, consider making gamified elements an integral part of your pedagogical strategy. Example: Productive Failure Failure is a great way to learn but often brings not-so-great consequences. Productive failure is a strategy that enables learning by providing otherwise impractical low-risk opportunities to fail: managing a stock portfolio, simulating traffic flow, floating in space, creating a planet, and flying an airplane.

En ajoutant un storytelling immersif avec des techniques scenaristiques pour favoriser l’engagement et l’envie d’en avoir toujours plus ! Nous avons fait un podcast à ce sujet si vous souhaitez en savoir plus et bient?t un livre ?? ! @laetsmind