Using Pride Motivation Mechanisms to Drive User Behavior and Onboarding

How do you get users do the things you want them to do?

Pretty much every product will have to deal with this in some capacity at some point. New users coming in aren't familiar with the product and may not know how to take advantage of the features. Even existing users need to be nudged to take actions that help them be successful with a product from time to time.

In this article, I give a taste of my rewards framework, PASTE, and demonstrate how two specific product features are using the reward mechanism of Pride to motivate user behaviors: progress indicators and quests.

This topic is inspired by this nifty little widget appeared on the analytics dashboard on LinkedIn. I instantly wanted to write about it because it's a great example of gamification driving user behavior. It demonstrates both a progress indicator and quest structure.

PASTE Framework

I haven't written too much publicly, though many clients have heard about my rewards framework: PASTE. This framework describes how you can think about the various components of what makes something rewarding and is based research into a range of subjects related to motivation and reward mechanisms.

PASTE stands for Pride Access Social Things Experience. I promise I'll talk about the other components and how they come together in a future article. But for today, I want to focus on Pride because aspects of Pride are essential in gamification and designing for intrinsic motivation.

Aside: The name "pride," while descriptive, is also because "PASTE" made for a great acronym.

Pride Rewards and Motivators

Pride is one of the most useful reward components to use in gamification. It is inspired by Self Determination Theory (SDT) which describes what makes for intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when someone is moved to do something for its own value rather than for an external reward. SDT describes three drivers of intrinsic motivation: relatedness, autonomy, and competence.

Essentially, people like to do things that they feel like they are good at. They will do these things even with no tangible rewards. They are motivated to continue to do these things if they feel competence in doing them. When you win, when you complete, when you achieve... that feeling is Pride.

In gamification, we have many mechanisms we can use to create and enhance this sensation for users. In doing so, we increase the motivation and reward sensations for doing desired behaviors. Two very simple and common mechanisms that work to create Pride motivators are used in the Weekly sharing tracker widget: quests and progress indicators.

Progress Indicators

Perhaps one of the most ubiquitous forms of gamification, most people don't even think of the progress indicator as being such because it's are so omnipresent—especially in modern UX/UI design.

A progress indicator is a graphical representation of completion status for a task. A filled portion indicates how much the has been completed and an empty portion represents what is left. Making forward progress increases the size of the filled portion while decreasing the size of the remainder.

That last sentence may seem obvious from the first when talking about filling a fixed spaced. But it's its own important part of why a progress indicator is such an effective tool for motivation: it represents a decrease in the distance to the reward. (The reward here being that full progress bar.) In looking at rewards and motivation, the distance to a reward has an inverse effect on motivation: the smaller the distance, the greater the motivation. This means that as the empty space on the indicator is decreasing, the motivation to finish the progress is increasing. Meanwhile, that filling component represents an accumulation of what has already been completed. When possible, animating the actual fill is used to provide really clear feedback showing progress happening.

Progress indicators are powerful because they serve multiple purposes at once:

1. Orient the user to where they are in a process
2. Create a sense of accomplishment from what has already been filled
3. Create a sense of desire to complete from the space which is empty
4. Allow for a clear state change from less filled to more filled

LinkedIn could enhance the feedback by popping up the tracker in a modal and animating that circle filling (increasing the immediacy and impact of the feedback will make it more effective) but that wouldn't necessarily fit with the design patterns around LinkedIn and could also be disruptive.

In the case of this widget's progress bar, the success is not the reward feedback that comes from a bar filling, but rather the motivation to complete, thus creating using that Pride reward as an incentive (incentive because the motivation is from the promise of the reward). In the above screenshot, it only takes one more action. Surely a user could do one more little thing to get that in a nice complete state.

The options to complete are delivered in the form of quests which make the actions feel even smaller and therefore more easy to complete.

What is a Quest?

I use the term quest to describe a game structure that has:

1. A goal, task, or todo for a player
2. Clear instructions or calls to action for meeting the goal
3. Recognition for meeting the goal

Quests are used to direct a user. Many constructs follow this format. They're sometimes called challenges, missions, or, in many cases, not explicitly named at all. In games—where they are often called quests explicitly, hence my terminology—quests often give some kind of extrinsic reward such as a currency, a new item, or experience points.

From a behavioral lens, we can see that the three key parts of a quest line up with the three ingredients for behavior in the Fogg Behavior Model. First there is a prompt, presented as an instruction. Then, we have ability in the instructions or call to action. Finally we have the motivation in the form of the reward.

Quests, especially in digital games, usually have a narrative element that leads to the Todo. There are times when the instructions come in the form of a wayfinder or marker on the map which will help the player know where to find the next steps. And they pretty much always have rewards for recognition.

Looking at our widget, we can see all three of these pieces presented to the user:

One of the things that makes this quest example so effective is the strength of the instructions. It is extremely clear how to complete my quest.

The Widget's Purpose in the Product

This widget is designed to do several things:

1. Provide guidance to users on clear steps they can take to improve their LinkedIn presence.
2. Enhance motivation to do these activities by using the quest and progress bar mechanisms.
3. Drive expansion of the relatively new Collaborative Article feature of LinkedIn.
4. Enhance social connection and platform engagement.

Because the widget resets weekly, it evokes structures similar to games' "daily challenges" or "retention bonus." These types of features invite users to return at a regular cadence and complete something doable—often in a single session—which creates an engagement loop. The loop reinforces itself with that continuous Pride feedback leading to improved retention.

What to Expect in Data

If this widget is working to drive behaviors, on a per user basis, each of the 4 purposes noted above would see improvements to their metrics.

1. Follower count, connection requests, profile views, post impressions.
2. Posts, comments, and collaborative article edits. Visits to the analytics dashboard and/or increase in the click through on the widget's CTAs will definitively connect the improvements to the widget but any increase would count.
3. Increased collaborative article views and edits
4. Increased connection requests, time on platform, and retention

Wider Applications: Onboarding

In Product (including games), onboarding is the user experience journey where a new user begins using the product, completing registration, profile creation (if applicable) and learning to use the product. This experience can be completed in the first session or may take place over time. Onboarding also can occur for individual features.

This process is also sometimes called FTUE or FUE for First (Time) User Experience. In games, it can be quite complex as the user needs to learn all the rules and parts of the game without risking turning them off (remember, games are optional diversions, not essential tools).

Onboarding is one most likely part of a product where you're likely to see quests and they are often—but not always—paired with progress indicators. This is because onboarding is the part of your product where the user needs the most direction and motivation to proceed. They're not invested, they don't know their way around, and they may not even have converted to any monetization yet.

I ran into one right away in my day-to-day with Marlee shown above. Below is the Twitch onboarding for a new streamer to set up their account to go from viewer to content creator. The quests are given with directives that are easy to complete while also giving feedback on how far along a user is in the process:

Conclusion

Gamification is already all around you in products you use every day. Features like quests and progress indicators are common and effective because they tap into the rewards category of Pride which gives positive feelings for having accomplished things. Product features that give both direction and feedback for completion of tasks are ideal ways to utilize Pride to encourage users to do what you want them to do.

Heather Arbiter is a Games/Gamification Designer and Product Manager. She designed the PASTE framework as a way of understanding what makes people motivated and drives them to do what they do in response to rewards and incentives.

#FeatureFriday is a biweekly newsletter about the intersection of product, gamification, and behavior written with a personal touch. This is the 22nd edition of the series.