Gamifying The Experience

Being competitive is rather inherent to human nature, or at least it is in the case of most people. Probably this is the reason why we take so welcomingly to sporting activities - not necessarily ones that are physical in nature but also those that stimulate our mental 'gaming' faculties - and here I'm not even talking about complex strategy games such as chess.

I think it is a deep rooted desire for triumph that drives this in us. So even simpler actions such as tossing a coin or throwing a waste-paper ball in the bin can invoke this feeling.

The video below - of The Hopscotch Experiment by CUT - captures this human trait very well.

The purposeful design and development of processes and systems to capture this response from consumers is what became gamification. A term we have become quite familiar with today when we hear of businesses (particularly tech-based start-ups) vying for customer retention by increasing user-engagement and repeat-usage.

Now the decision of wanting to participate in a game - or more specifically the desire of wanting to win a game - is more emotionally driven than logically. And it has largely contributed to the continual success of commercial games, especially in today's times with the penetration of mobile gaming and in-app purchases. A good experience designer will know and understand exactly what pain-points to address (as well as when and how to do so) in order to drive an emotional (intuitive) response from a consumer.

And once you've got the consumer responding where / when / how you want, all that is left to do is ensure that an error-free outcome is delivered efficiently. The consumers' perception of the quality being offered is already heightened on account of the biasing they have inadvertently gone through while making the decision in the first place. This is because the much desired/quested-for 'value creation' happened at the point when you provided your consumers with that which they would have intuitively wanted, just when they were beginning to want it. This is and must always be the crux of consumer experience.

Design thinking that adopts gamification, or even user-experience for that matter, does not have to be limited to the creation of digital interfaces. There is truly so much that is possible if the ambit of this thought process is widened.

When it comes to the adoption of gamification by businesses, the issue is that the latter tend to limit the usage of such engagement strategies only to their customers. This is probably the reason for the heightened focus on Customer Experience (CX) today. But what businesses fail to realize is that those who don't get to play the game are the ones making and/or facilitating it in the first place. As a an excellent example to elaborate this, the recent article by Tapish puts forth a rather interesting yet obvious point about the need for experience to be provided at both ends of a business's model - external as well as internal stakeholders.

This is why when we were posed with the challenge of increasing engagement of our team members for internal trainings and knowledge sharing activities at Coinmen, we looked towards gamification for a productive solution. The outcome was a fairly simple yet rather effective point-based system for the participants, with the provision of befitting rewards and recognitions that consequently triggered additional engagement. And before we developed this approach, we invested time in truly understanding the concerned stakeholders - those members for whom we were creating the system, so what if they were our colleagues whom we already 'knew'.

Any good experience designer will never underestimate the importance of good market research. Assuming on behalf of others or incorrectly extrapolating a misrepresentative sample-set is where the core of a gamification strategy goes wrong. Because gamification connects with its consumers at emotional levels and not just logical ones, it is critical to analyse the consumers' traits, habits, preferences, and so on. And dont' just limit the research to the sector/industry concerning your product/service - the wider the scope of information about the consumer you acquire, the better will be the consequent strategy.

Of course, this will require a noteworthy investment of time and resources. But what if this process is gamified too? If we do this, there is a very high likelihood that the responses captured will be more intuitive and emotionally driven. This will inevitably become a rich resource of information that can critically impact the design and development of your strategy and gamification system. Or to put it simply in Einstein's words:

“Play is the highest form of research.”

I truly believe that for designers, design thinkers, and product development teams, the potential that gamification brings to the table is very significant. And with the advent and increasing focus on Customer Experience (CX), the possibilities that can arise from the marriage of these two is really what can lead to some very interesting insights and outcomes.