The Smart Instructional Designer’s Path to Gamification: Add Value, Not Points

As I sit here at myfavorite coffee shop to write this short piece on gamification, I couldn’t helpbut relate the experience to gamification.

What made me come heretoday, spur of the moment? To be honest, it’s not a day I felt like leaving myhome office—but I came anyway because (drum roll here) I had a free beveragewaiting for me.

I frequently buy thisshop’s caffeinated drinks regardless of whether they are free. But getting themgratis gives me extra (extrinsic) motivation to show up, sit backin one of the comfy chairs, get some work done on the free Wi-Fi, and perhapsbuy another item at the store before I leave.

What did I do to getthat free beverage? I had completed previous purchases and perhaps answered acouple of surveys.

Defining gamification

Now, about gamification:There is a lot of confusion about the differences between games per se and gamification.

What is gamification,in its simplest terms? The most-used definition of gamification is theapplication of game mechanics to non-game situations. What arecommon game mechanics? The lowest-hanging fruit are points, badges, missions,and achievement levels.

Applying the principles

So, back to my coffeeouting this morning:

I am alreadyintrinsically motivated to buy this shop’s coffee regularly. Yet the storeprovided me with extra extrinsic motivation, such as stars, levels, and pointswith every purchase and for other sorts of engagement, such as answeringsurveys. This loyalty system isn’t what you’d consider a game. There is nostory, no end state, and I wouldn’t call it “fun” exactly. The coffee shop didn’tcreate a new multilevel digital game with characters, or game boards withplayer pieces and dice. It simply added the idea of points and status (levels)with some clear rewards (free beverages) to somethingthe customers already did anyway (buy its products).

Using gamification in your curricula

The same can happen toyour curricula, whether on a traditional LMS, enterprise social media portal, orelsewhere. You can add game mechanics to existing assets in order to give yourlearners extra motivation to access your learning content that otherwise isn’texactly a game.

Here are somerecommendations for delving into gamification for your organization’s learningexperiences:

• Don’t gamify everything in your LMS and other portals. Consider a thorough approach that curates the best content you already have, and use game mechanics to support different roles in your organization. For instance, if you have three different experience levels for coaches (junior coach, experienced coach, senior coach), make your “game” levels reflect those levels. That is, use gamification to add engagement and value around programs, competency models, and other HR data.
• Reward proper behaviors. That is, reward competence, not the mere completion of menial tasks. Instead of rewarding the players for simply clicking links, reward them for clicking the links and then performing a task with what they learn. For instance, if you ask them to go to your LMS and complete a course about delivering powerful presentations, make sure their next step is to create a presentation based on what they learned and post it on your internal social network for other players to provide feedback.
• Use gamification to help create context around existing content, as well as to tighten interest in completing meaningful tasks.
• Relate the experience to real-life awards such as eBooks, prizes, or limited experiences that add perceived value to your target population. For example, offer new employees a chance to meet executives in a smaller, more personal setting, plan a local scavenger hunt, etc.

In conclusion…