Simplicity Counts, Even in Gamification

Last time I attempted a deeper dive into the psychology of motivation: a key factor of any gamification process. Due to the huge body of research literature in this field, we really just dipped our toes into the water. In this article, I will talk about the second factor in Fogg’s Behavior Model (FBM): Ability. And I will give some examples of game dynamics that have been developed around this factor.

Whenever I talk about the FBM, people usually grasp motivation and trigger pretty quickly. Although some people may be confused about the differences between the two, they have an idea about what they are and how they are used in game dynamics. However, I do find many people often have a tougher time understanding how ability is used in gamification. The reason for this is because there are a couple of ways to look at this factor. Let me explain what I mean:

1. From the user’s perspective: It is his ability
2. From the task’s perspective: It is the task’s simplicity

Perception vs. Reality

In most gamification applications, the user usually has the actual ability to complete the task. If a user really doesn’t have the ability to complete the task, then all gamification can do, at most, is get the user to begin the task, but invariably he will not be able to complete it due to the lack of ability. In these situations, gamification can still be used to get people to repeat the task, so the user can truly increase his ability through practice. This, however, is a different gamification strategy.

However, many tasks are still not being performed by the user who has the ability, even when he is motivated and is properly triggered. As it turns out, “ability” has a perceptual component to it. Most users won’t perform a task if they perceive their ability is insufficient to complete the task. That is, they think the task too hard to complete.

Therefore, to endow someone with higher ability to perform a task, we can either:

1. Increase his real ability by motivating him to practice – the harder way
2. Increase the task’s perceived simplicity – the easier and quicker way

This brings us to the question, “What is perceived simplicity?” But to understand perceived simplicity, we must first understand what is simplicity.

Simplicity, as it Turns Out, is Not so Simple

Simplicity is another one of those concepts of which people have an intuitive understanding, but can’t really define precisely. But to turn gamification into a real science, we need a quantitative model, which will require a precise and quantifiable definition for what simplicity means. Besides creating the FBM, Prof. B. J. Fogg at Stanford has also developed a sophisticated psychological framework (that involves six factors) to define and evaluate simplicity. Here I will present a simplified and generalized version of his framework.

Behaviors that are simple must not require any resources you lack (or have limited access to) at the time when you need to perform the behavior. So simplicity is a measure of your access to the following three categories of resources, which determine if something is truly simple.

1. Scarce resources: time, money, permission, etc. In real life, scarce resources can often be traded off. For example, I can spend money to buy myself a plane ticket to go to a conference in LA to save time. Or I can drive there (which will take more time) to save money.

2. Effort resources: these include both physical and mental efforts, such as attention, IQ, etc. Effort resources are associated with an individual, but they can be exhausted and replenished at a different time. So they can often be traded off, at different times. For example, I might be very tired now and don’t have the mental effort to solve a difficult math problem, but I will be recharged tomorrow and ready to crunch numbers again. So, by deferring a task to the future, it may appear simpler. The appointments dynamic leverages this mechanism by giving people the time they need to complete the task when they are resource-rich.

3. Adaptability resources: these are one’s capability to break norms, which may be social, personal, behavioral, or cultural. Adaptability resources are associated with an individual and not easily traded off for any one individual. Yet, they can still be traded off between different individuals through collaboration (i.e. people with different resources helping each other). This is the basis of communal discovery and other community collaboration mechanics.

The bottom line is, if you don’t have access or have lost access to any one category of resource at the moment when you need to carry out a task, then that task will not be simple to you. However, I must emphasize that different people have access to different resources, so simplicity depends on the person (i.e. what’s simple for one person may or may not be simple for another). Moreover, simplicity can even change for the same person at a different time and context. For example, writing an article is simple for me right now because I have the time, but I might be busy in an hour and won’t have access to time anymore. Therefore, writing may no longer be as simple a task for me an hour later. So simplicity is really determined by the prevalence of your scarcest resource at the moment when you need to perform the task.

Perceived Simplicity

Alright, now that we understand what simplicity is, we are ready to define perceived simplicity. A behavior is perceived to be simple if the user can complete it with fewer resources than he expects. So behaviors that are perceived simple, may not be truly simple, they just need to be simpler than the expectation of the person who needs to perform them.

Many game dynamics are designed to increase the perceived simplicity of the task. For example, cascading information and chained reward schedules can be use to guide and reward users through small steps of a complex task. Also behavioral momentum leverages people’s tendency to follow their personal norms (i.e. routines).

In most cases, motivation and ability (or simplicity) are independent of each other. So, increasing one won’t affect the other. Therefore rather than optimizing one or the other, we need to strike a balance between these two factors to achieve the best behavioral outcome. However, on the extreme ends of the motivation and ability axis, this motivation and ability can sometimes trade off against each other. If we endowed the user with very high ability (e.g. by making the target behavior dead simple, such a single click of a mouse button), then the user may perform the behavior even if he is totally not motivated. Likewise, if the motivation is high enough, some user will find some ways to achieve the target behavior even if he does not have the ability to perform it (e.g. they may spend the time to increase their ability or find other friends to help).

Conclusion

Alright, I think we’ve successfully dived deep into the second factor of FBM today. There is definitely less existing research on ability and simplicity relative to the topic of motivation.

In summary, gamification can increase a user’s ability two ways.

1. Motivating the users to practice the task, so over time, his ability actually increases.
2. Increase the user’s perceive-ability by increasing the perceived simplicity of the task.

We also learned that simplicity (and perceived simplicity) is something that can be defined and quantified. Simplicity is a measure of your access to resources needed to complete the task at a particular time, such as:

1. Scarce resources: time, money, permission, etc
2. Effort resources: physical efforts and mental efforts (attention, IQ, etc)
3. Adaptability resources: norm-breaking capacities

If you can easily access all the resources required by the task, then the task will be simple. If you can complete the task with fewer resources than expected, then you will perceive the task as simple. That’s it! Simple, right?

Next time, we’ll discuss the final factor of the FBM: Trigger. Until then I welcome any discussion on the topic of ability and simplicity with respect to gamification. See you next time.