Gamification Design Steps: An introduction
Gamification: A design experience to fun, happiness and motivation
Gamification is a design experience to happiness and motivation. We
should never forget that Design is Gamification´s biggest challenge and where
all its power lies, like a double-edged sword.
So design matters, and it is the difference between another PBL system
and a great gamified experience. There are many books, articles and case
studies about why design is one of the most important things to take into
account and for sure we could be hours talking about it.
I’m not an expert design thinker but if as me, you just want to get some
great insights and key points about it, I recommend Tom Kelley´s books on
design (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Innovation-Lessons-Creativity-Americas/dp/0385499841). He is the CEO of IDEO, the number one company in design
thinking, and some years ago we had the chance to visit their HQ in Silicon Valley. Here is a picture about the first Apple
mouse.
But getting back to Gamification, how do we start?
First of all, we should start thinking as a game designer and as a game
designer; our main goal is to deliver an awesome experience. OK, I know I know,
Gamification is not a game, but since we are going to use stuff like mechanics,
aesthetics or storytelling, let’s all pretend we are Blizzard’s number one
designer for now!
But what do you mean with delivering an experience? How can I do it?
Well, that is a kind of long and complex question to answer because it
involves so many things, (and there are whole books about it!) but to keep it
simple, let’s start from the beginning. And our starting point is the Gamification
basics so…
Whether you just arrived to the blog, or you already are an expert
gamifier, it’s always good to refresh some Gamification basics. Why not having
a look at some key points?
- Why use Gamification -> http://www.epicwinblog.net/2013/04/why-use-gamification.html
- When NOT to use Gamification -> http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/VictorManrique/20130517/192470/When_not_to_use_Gamification.php
- Gamification Player Types - > http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/VictorManrique/20130524/193007/Gamification_Player_Types_The_TimeEngagement_Pyramid.php
Now we are ready to go! Let’s get into the thrilling world of Gamification
design!
Gamification design framework
by Prof. Werbach: An introduction
Even before starting with a new (actually, extended is more accurate)
Gamification design framework, we should have a look at what I consider one of
the best and most complete tools for designing, Professor Werbach´s Gamification
design framework, also called “The 6 Ds”.
For those who still don’t know Kevin (@kwerb), this is a hangout we did
some days ago, with great content and a superb explanation of his 6 Ds model.
In addition, a new edition of his Gamification MOOC on Coursera is
planned for fall 2013 so feel free to sign up! I took the second edition and it
was awesome and really insightful. This is an image of his 6D model extracted
from the course
Basically, and as you may know, his model is based on 6 steps that are:
- Define business objectives
- Delineate target behaviours
- Describe your players
- Devise activity loops
- Don’t forget the fun
- Deploy the appropriate tools
If you want to know more about this extremely useful framework, I recommend
reading his book “For the Win” (and a second part coming soon, check out the
hangout to know further details!) in which you can find everything about this
steps and how to implement them in your design process. Find his book and many others here: http://www.epicwinblog.net/2013/05/best-gamification-books-where-to-start.html
Gamification design steps by
@victormanriquey: The 4 Qs
So you made it down here! Great! I hope I could convince you to do two
things: consider yourself the number one game designer of the whole industry
(OK, just Blizzard or Roxio are great too) and start considering design as the
most important part of Gamification!
Now we are ready to get into the 4 Questions model, an extended version
of Prof. Werbach´s 6 “Ds”.
So what is that 4 Qs framework and how does it help
me?
The 4 Qs model is an iterative process to design great gamified experiences
to fun, happiness and motivation and it can be used for both internal and
external Gamification, with an individual or community focus, and in overall,
within any Gamification context.
So this is how it looks like:
Basically, and to put it simple (we’ll explain it later in two upcoming
posts) a gamified experience relies on 4 variables, four questions with a clear
answer:
-
WHY? Goal
-
WHAT? Actions
-
WHO? Players
-
HOW? System
WHY? First of all, we
use Gamification because of a main goal, something we want to achieve. In
overall, the main goals of Gamification are within these categories: get better
results, get more users, make our players spend more time on something and
increase user engagement. As an example, imagine we are a business and we want
to sell more (better results)
WHAT? Once we have
settled our Gamification Goal, it’s time to do something about it, see what we
are encouraging our player to do. So in order to achieve our goal, the players
will have to take some actions. Following the example, if as a business we want
to sell more, some of the actions we may foster through Gamification might be
just buying more (direct), promote our brand or create a community (indirect),
offer special events (indirect), etc.
WHO? We all have users,
clients, customers, students, etc. Those are our players, and they are
different, with different motivations. (See my post on Gamasutra about it here:
LINK). We should get what I call “internal” and “external” feedback (from
inside and outside the company) in order to know more about them. And a really
important point, the more types of players we can encourage to use our system,
the better!
HOW? This is the most
critical part of the design process because the “HOW” changes everything. So
how are we going to design our system? Well, everyone has their own system, so
here is a brief introduction of mine (more coming very soon). I call this
design process “The 3 Pyramids”, and this is why:
To put it simple, we are going to use 3 things:
-
Story, Mechanics and Aesthetics (From The Book “The
art of game design”)
-
The Gamification Player Types & The T-E Pyramid
(more here:
-
The Player’s Journey (Campbell’s model)
Basically, and to put it simple (I’ll explain it very soon in further
detail) we are going to divide our design process into 3 stages in time. Each
frame will focus on a type of player (not forgetting the others) applying
story, mechanics and aesthetics as “game elements”.
So…
We have just started with Gamification´s design process and I’m sure you
want to join me in this amazing trip to the cores of fun, happiness and
motivation!!! But that will be in our next post!!
…to be continued…
**Next parts of this post:
Part 2 -> The 4 Critical Questions of Design http://www.epicwinblog.net/2013/06/gamification-design-steps-4-critical.html
Part 3 -> Mechanics, Aesthetics and Storytelling: A new design model http://www.epicwinblog.net/2013/06/gamification-design-steps-mechanics_10.html
Part 2 -> The 4 Critical Questions of Design http://www.epicwinblog.net/2013/06/gamification-design-steps-4-critical.html
Part 3 -> Mechanics, Aesthetics and Storytelling: A new design model http://www.epicwinblog.net/2013/06/gamification-design-steps-mechanics_10.html
Victor Manrique