Five gamification ideas to better engage your audience

Can you captivate your audience?
(photo credit: apogee photography)

Gamification has been all the hype for me in the past months, as it got prominently mentioned in several of the classes I took.  Are there anything valuable one can take from it after digging past the marketing hype?  My classmates and I worked together over the past few months to formulate five recommendations for a financial firm, on how it could use gamification to better engage its customers in the use of its financial planning tools.  The company loved our recommendations, and we felt that the same recommendations can be applied in many different settings.  So here they are for you to try in your own settings.

#1 Focus on the first minute

The first minute a new user interacts with the tool is extremely important, as it decides if the user will continue using the tool or if he will go somewhere else. The firm thus needs a clear idea of what it wants new users to experience during that first minute.  In the first minute, the user should not experience long, boring instructions.  He should not experience painful registration processes, or hard-to-understand terms and conditions.  Instead, he should experience the core experience of the tool.  If the core experience is fun and interactivity, he should experience it.  If the core experience is easing his financial planning tasks, he should experience it.

The challenge for delivering the experience is that there are no definite points on the firm’s website where users will enter. Users can come in through the company’s main webpage, or to the planning tools’ landing page, or even directly to one of the planning tools. How then can the firm deliver consistent first minute experience to first time users? One idea is to have a prominent button on all webpages that will take first time users to a starter page. Another idea is to focus on the navigation menu on the side or top, since it shows up on all webpages.

As part of the first minute experience, the website can ask meaningful questions to help users navigate the sea of content available. One possible question is “What are you planning to save for?” and the choices can be “Buying a car”, “Getting married”, “Buying a house”, “Children’s education”, “Retirement”, etc. Based on the user’s choice, he can be taken to content that is most relevant to what he is trying to accomplish. These questions can be asked proactively (e.g. via a pop-up questionnaire) or passively (e.g. as a section of text on a webpage). 

#2: Leverage on users' current concerns

We interviewed 25 users on their financial planning priorities, and many of them were more concerned with near term goals like “buying a car” or “getting married” than they are with long term goals of retirement planning. These life-stage events present precious windows of opportunity that can be leveraged to deepen users’ engagement with the tool. Minimally, users will grow more familiar with the tool’s user interface. More importantly, relevant user information (e.g. amount to save each month) can be collected, which increase the chances of them coming back in the future for other related financial planning tasks.

Games implement this idea through “Challenges and Quests”, like FourSquare’s badges and Farmville’s ribbons. Through challenges and quests, users are focused on smaller and more immediate tasks, and they might use the system for tasks even though they are not interested in the system (yet…). 

#3: Provide feedback using a progress bar

Business networking site LinkedIn has a visual indicator telling users how complete their professional profile is. If a user only provided his education information, his profile might be tagged as “20% complete”. If he has included his work experience, it might be “50% complete”. This progress bar is very helpful in helping users know how complete their profiles are, and it taps on inherent motivations in humans to complete tasks.

The tool can take on similar concept: tag users as “20% complete” if he provides his monthly savings goal, “50% complete” if he adds his current assets, and so on.

LinkedIn also frames this concept using a different idea. It includes an “Improve your profile” button on users’ profile pages, and when users click on the button, it shows a number of “To-dos” that users can do to improve their profiles, highlighting the first to-do task. This is an excellent way of focusing users to the next bite-size task they can focus on to improve their profiles. 

#4: Give more free rewards, more often

It is very hard to motivate people to plan for something that will only happen 40 years later. It is said that people spend more time planning for their vacations than they do for retirement, and it is not hard to believe that, because 40 years is a very long time! It is also very easy for other tasks to take precedence since in comparison; all other tasks are more urgent.

One way around this challenge is to help users break down their long financial planning journey into “levels”, and reward users each time they attain a new level.  Thus the concept "more rewards, more often".  For example, a user might promote into the next level when he has setup an investment plan, or if he has re-balanced his portfolio at least once in the past year.

The reward can be monetary, based on the firm’s estimation of the lifetime value of such a customer.  But there are also many other "free" rewards. The book "Gamification by Design" laid out four categories of rewards strung together by the acronym “SAPS”. Figure 1 lists the four categories along with some examples.

Reward Category	Examples
Status	Badges, Levels
Access	Lunch with CEO or celebrity, Access to the firm’s clubs, Priority queue at banks
Power	Moderator on a forum, more say in what new features to include in the tool
Stuff	Freebies

Figure 1 Four Categories of Rewards

#5: Define an engagement score

How can the firm know the impact of its gamification efforts unless it measures it? An engagement score should measure more than just the conventional page views or number of unique visitors. It should also measure how much time users spend on the website, how often they return to it, if they have registered accounts, etc. A good way to create the engagement score is to think along five dimensions: recency, frequency, duration, virality and ratings (detailed in the book "Gamification by design").

With a good engagement score, the firm can measure where it is at before it implements gamification, and later have a clear way to assess the effectiveness of the gamification efforts. In addition, the score will also be useful for incremental calibrations, as the firm experiments with tweaks in its engagement efforts.

References

[1] Gamification by Design, “Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps” By Gabe Zichermann, Christopher Cunningham
[2] Lee, H., Schlossberg, E., Seelhof, M., Teo, K. S., & Wong, M. F. (2012). Fidelity Engagement and Gamification. MIT.

One of my classmates who worked on this project also wrote about the project on his blog, check out his article "Are You Game?".

IT mega-trends for Enterprise and Consumers

photo credit: rAmmoRRison

Saw a presentation by NTT CTO Imran Sayeed on IT mega-trends today that I found interesting.  The list was not surprising, but it is more of thinking about what should be and should not be on the list.  In addition, it was interesting that the presenter divided the trends into enterprise trends and consumer trends as one could think about why a trend is in one list but not the other and if or when it would crossover.

For some of the mega-trends, I have also added my commentaries.

Enterprise mega-trends

• Cloud - especially around strategy to migrating in-house enterprise applications to the cloud
• Mobility
• Big data - maybe I should try this in my personal life!  Start by collecting data like weight, sleep quality with gadgets like wireless weighting scale and FitBit
• Enterprise 2.0 - especially on the use of social media
• Others (though not as much traction): Digital video, crowd sourcing, gamification

Consumer mega-trends

• Mobility
• Social Network
• P2P: ways for consumers to sell services to each other, e.g. getaround, airbnb, prosper

When I saw the list, I wondered why Enterprise Architecture (EA) was not on the list.  Subsequent discussion with the presenter confirmed my suspicion: practices like enterprise architecture and IT governance are needed to make new technologies work, but they are not as sexy as the mega-trend technologies, so they definitely don't get talked about as much.  

Is there then an underinvestment in enterprise architecture?  Will there be a time in the future when venture capitalists will be funding EA startups?  Or should we think of EA in similar ways as project management, that it is crucial but seldom the news maker?

What platforms has social media created for us, and how should we use them?

Photo Credit: GustavoG

There is no doubt that social media has made a significant impact on our lives. Consumers get their information socially via articles and videos recommended by their friends, they buy things based on their friends' recommendations but also often based on "strangers' recommendation" like on Yelp and Tripadvisor, and some even offer products and services on sites like getaround, airbnb and prosper, but here again more to strangers than to people in they know.

From the earlier description, we can see two types of social network. One that is made up of people we know (simplistically referred to here as friends), while the other is made up mostly of people we don't know (referred here as strangers). The key values of friends networks are trust and relationship. These are people that we know, so we are more trusting of the truthfulness of their recommendations. Note though we might not believe in their suitability at making particular recommendations, for example we would not trust computer advice given by our technology-challenged friends. Friends networks also hold people we care about. We want to know how they have been recently; we are interested in their photos, etc. and we want to share highs and lows of our lives with them.

The key values of stranger networks are size and diversity. When we need advice on a niche topic, it might be hard to find someone in our friends network who can help us but because of comparably much large size of the stranger network, it is likely that we can find someone there who can help us. Moreover, if we need help from a lot of people, say to complete the one million pixel project, the stranger network is more right-sized for the job compared to our friends networks.

Are there other types of networks? There are professional networks, now championed by linked-in. There are also interest-based networks, like customer networks. What values do these networks offer? The article “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media[1]” seems to offer a good framework for analyzing different types of social media. Hopefully I will get to reading it and then I can share my thoughts.

What are the implications of these networks and how should we make the best use of them? I think every individual and organisaton need to be more aware of these different types of networks, their functions and values, and then think about how best to use them. For example, recently I have grown to see more of the value of LinkedIn, as it is a better platform than Facebook for building a community of practice around my expertise. I can join in discussions related to my professional interest area and also build my reputation, something that is harder to do on Facebook as the content there is more informal and I might not be connected to colleagues that I am connected with on LinkedIn (and for many relationships I want to keep it that way). What are other networks I can tap into? What are the opportunities there?

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[1] Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media  - Jan H. Kietzmann *, Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, Bruno S. Silvestre 

iTV: will it change the way we collaborate?

Photo credit: jakerome

There had been several rumors about Apple making a TV.  Will this be another game changer, like the iPhone and iPad?  Will Apple be able to leverage TV's unique form factor to create a new paradigm for collaboration?

Already there has been talk that the iTV (or likely iPanel) will have advanced features unseen in conventional TVs, like voice recognition, front facing cameras and gesture recognitions[1].  Likely iTV will be released late 2012 or early 2013.

But most importantly, can Apple crack the challenges of TV's form factor?  In the case of smartphones and tablets, companies prior to Apple failed because they did not adequately address key differences resulted by form factors.  For example, a touch interface makes more sense for phones, and consequently buttons need to be a lot bigger.  Microsoft tried to port an interface designed for keyboard and mouse over to the phone, and that resulted (at least partially) in its failure.

So what new issues do the unique form factor of TV bring?

• Input interface: touch interface and keyboards will not work, as people are further away from the screen and often doing other tasks (e.g. cooking)
• Possibilities of collaboration: there is often more than one person using the screen, is it desirable to allow more than one person to control the TV?  How can the new TV be used to facilitate collaboration?
• Handling private information: information displayed on TV is a lot more public than that for phones, tablets and computers.  What will that mean for tasks like entering passwords?

Apple shares will very likely jump if it can address these issues well!  And this is big as it is the first device targeted for use by more than one person at a time!  I think about all the collaboration at work and lines of businesses wanting something like that...

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[1] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/117305-apple-itv-detailed-its-like-a-42-inch-ipad

Gamification: Digging past the marketing hype

Photo Credit: Christopher Chan

One of my first reactions when I heard about gamification was, isn’t this an old idea?  I have seen past examples of using game concepts to meet business objectives.  In fact, I was part of one such project, where we created a wheel-of-fortune-like game to raise awareness of computer security issues.  Moreover, there are many old examples of education software incorporating game concepts into them.  What then is different about gamification?  Surely the concept of using fun to engage people is not new!  One university professor felt so strongly that he wrote an article titled “Gamification is Bullshit”[1]!  Consequently, for a while, I half believed that gamification was just marketing hype with no real novelty behind it.

Later I encountered an explanation that though gamification is not a new idea, it is gamification’s widespread impact that is new, and that has come about because of the emergence of a generation grown up on games.  As such, gamification is now more widely accepted, where before it was locked out of business boardrooms.  There is some truth to this, but as I read more, I discovered that there is even more depth to this topic.

Identifying Game Mechanics

Firstly, I discovered game mechanics/dynamics—mechanisms in games that make them interesting and engaging.  For example, one mechanics is the “appointment dynamic”, where players need to accomplish a certain task at a certain time.  Happy hours at bars is an example of this mechanic.  I was impressed with how gamification literature was able to systematically categorize and describe many more mechanics, and that moved me to believe that there is some science behind the topic.

Learning about Engagement Psychology

Next, I realized that studying motivation and engagement is much more important now than before as the number of choices for things like websites and mobile apps have grown overwhelmingly.  Games are arguably the best place to study these topics.  Unlike other software, there are no practical needs—like creating documents or booking hotels—driving people to games.  As such, games need to work harder to entice and engage people.  Even though I was tempted to dismiss gamification as a rebrand of engagement psychology, I find games easier to understand and access than psychology literature.

Understanding Gamification Considerations

The book “Gamification by Design”[2] further strengthened my confidence in gamification.  It gives a detailed write-up on the different game mechanics along with considerations when incorporating those mechanics.  I began to see that gamification might have gotten bad press because some implemented its concept without fully appreciating the “whys” and the “hows”.  For example, “points system” is a common feature in gamified systems, but without careful consideration of when and how many points to award, it would be useless in increasing user engagement.

Gamification is a topic worthy of serious consideration in the present age of attention deficit, what do you think?

After note: I wrote a followup post titled "Five gamification ideas to better engage your audience".

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[1] http://www.bogost.com/blog/gamification_is_bullshit.shtml

[2] Gamification by Design, Gabe Zichermann and Christopher Cunningham, http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920014614.do

Apple, Android & Windows: Who will dominate in 2015?

Photo by Mike Bitzenhofer 

My "Business of Software and Digital Platforms" class discussed this week the mobile platform, and it is a very interesting area as there are many players, strategies, dramatic rises and falls, and most of all, it is something that many of us can closely relate to as mobile users.  Only a few years ago, Nokia and BlackBerry were big players, but now they have almost disappeared.  I can't help but to ponder who will dominate the mobile market, say in 2015?

Apple's unchallenged position in the higher-end market

Apple has been the hot favorite for a while.  It has an unchallenged “fashion statement” status.  Buying Apple devices has been perceived as being cool; something other mobile devices are still far behind on.  Furthermore, it is difficult for other mobile device manufacturers to catch up, as they do not have the degree of control Apple has over the hardware, operating system and apps of their mobile platforms.  Just looking at the operating system aspect alone, Android is facing difficulties delivering a consistent user experience because of fragmentation in its development.  

Passing of Steve Jobs

However, with the passing on of visionary leader Steve Jobs, will the company still be able to maintain its lead?  Tracing back on Apple’s history, Steve Jobs was the only one that had led the company successfully.  In his 12 years of absence from the company, Pepsi-Cola executive John Sculley failed to make the company big.  Apple’s ex-company president Michael Spindler failed too, and so did Apple director Gilbert Amelio.  Will Apple's current CEO Tim Cook be different?  The recent product launches by Apple--iPhone 4S and the "new iPad"--had been less spectacular.  Or has Steve Jobs left so much behind that it will take a long time before Apple’s lead will be eroded?  

Ever shrinking lead

At the same time, competing platforms are slowly closing the gap between them and Apple.  Number of apps on competing platforms is catching up, and so is the user-friendliness of iPhone and iPad competitors.  In fact, Android is now leading the market share.  Windows is a wildcard at this point, but it is throwing a lot of money in this area, and its recent partnership with Nokia brought renewed hope that it can get back in the mobile platform game.

Apple vs Samsung+HTC+LG+Sony+Acer+....

Apple is the only company designing phones and tablets for its iOS platform, while Android has many companies doing that.  Will Apple engineers be able to innovate as quickly at presumably more engineers who are working on the Android platform?  Separately, will the move towards web-based application, including the increasing adoption of HTML5, render choice of mobile platform irrelevant (e.g using Google Docs in place of native document editing software on Apple or Android)?


What is your bet for the winner in 2015???