To Wordle, or not.

Unless you've been living away from social media, you're probably already familiar with the green, yellow and grey/black boxes that have been "blessing" our timelines.

To be honest, I was quite late to jump on the?#Wordle?bandwagon. I might even say it was a mixture of curiosity and peer pressure (read:?#FOMO) that got me into it.

While I have definitely moved away from waiting impatiently for a new puzzle to be released at midnight (or the first thing in the morning), it's still something that I look forward to every day.

I've realised that Wordle's success, and the appeal, is primarily down to:

The KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy:

It's a puzzle that does what it says on the tin. There are no additional frills, no requirement of numerous logins - yet all the benefits of a fun brain teaser. Granted that some of it is just educated guesswork, but at least from an experience perspective, it's pretty darn simple. And that's the beauty of it. There's nothing to overcomplicate it.

Accessibility:

While not perfect, Wordle plays massively into the whole realm of it being?#accessible?to more people. You can play it on almost any device, share your "success" (or angst - like I had today, having to take six attempts to guess the word!) without actually giving away the spoilers, and it's visual. Of course, there are certainly other things that can be improved - but for something that started as a fun pet project during lockdown - it has certainly taken more things into consideration than several more established game creators have.

The fact that limits are often good:

While as a child, I never appreciated the establishment of "limits" for anything. After all, what child would? But as a parent, I absolutely do. And personally, I love that about Wordle. That you only get a set number of attempts, and that you can only do one a day. It's a great balance, and in a way, helps us regulate the time we spend on it. I know that there are apps that enable you to do this with things like?#socialmedia?- and I should probably try them out.

Free, Word of mouth #marketing:

I first heard about Wordle from a friend on Twitter. Of course, there are plenty of posts and articles about the game now - in fact, way too many I'd say - including this one from me. But as far as I can see, not one of them was a paid thing. It's all built on the fact that we're innately curious. So when you start to see rather non-descript coloured boxes appearing on your timeline with just some stats and the phrase, Wordle, you naturally sit up and take notice. And then when you finally complete your first puzzle, you feel like you're a part of an exclusive group (of 1.8 million and growing every day!). So, again naturally, you want to share. And the cycle repeats itself.

So, I guess the question really is - are you a Wordle-r yet?

#experience?#userexperience?#games?#puzzles?#wordgames