Why Apps Should Be More Like Games

Part Two: Reinforcing Action in a Non-game Context

Small Planet’s Chief Experience Officer Fred Lee has been creating & shaping digital experiences for almost 20 years, with a focus on editorial content & user-focused design.

Some time ago, everybody was talking about ‘gamification.’ And it felt like the drill was, “Let’s increase engagement by sprinkling on elements borrowed superficially and indiscriminately from games.” Give users some shiny badges, a cute avatar, and an easy way to rack up points and you’re done.

But with no deeper understanding of why these elements make games more engaging, they were mostly useless, or added noise.

There are powerful forces at work when a game takes over your brain and becomes irresistible. Brain chemistry and neurotransmitters … but we aren’t going to get too deep into that.

In Part One, we discussed compulsion loops, and how they are at the core of nearly all successful video games. A compulsion loop is defined by Wikipedia as a ‘habitual, designed chain of activities that will be repeated to gain a neurochemical reward, such as the release of dopamine.”

A typical compulsion loop in a game consists of Action, Reward, and Anticipation.

• I slay a dragon.
• I get gold coins and buy cool things with them.
• I’m ready to kill another dragon.

Great games have multiple compulsion loops layered in throughout the experience.

So What Does This Have to Do With Apps?

The goal of a video game is to get the player to return over and over again to play the game. Another term for that is engagement, and engagement is at the core of all successful apps.

Games are the purest form of engagement. There is no other purpose other than to be engaged, to have fun, to be delighted. In a sense, games are the purest distillation of the central UX challenge of all apps — How do I make my app more fun, more engaging, so users will come back over and over again?

But, as we’ve pointed out, the answer isn’t to slap on a point system, or let users make avatars, and say, “See, isn’t that fun?”

There needs to be some understanding of what makes people care. And what makes them care enough to come back again and again.

And we can’t lose sight of the fact that, at the end of the day, we’re not usually making games at Small Planet. Our apps generally have to dosomething — solve a user problem, provide utility, etc. Sometimes, a task is a task, and no amount of sexy gameplay is going to make it anything other than that.

How do we reinforce action in a non-game context?

Well, you should start by identifying what you want your users to do. What do you want to reward? Registering? Providing an email address? Using a customization feature?

Reinforcement doesn’t always have to take the form of gold coins or a shiny trophy, or any complicated system. As long as it’s meaningful and well-considered, there are plenty of ways to ‘reward’ users:

• Unlocked content or features
• Easter eggs
• Personalized, “narrative” content that follows the user’s journey
• Adding wit and/or inspirational content to notifications and reminders
• Seasonal skins or features included in regular updates
• Even simple, clear feedback can go a long way toward gratifying users, whether it’s visual, audio, or haptic

Takeaways

Users like to be rewarded, or at least acknowledged, for their actions. Take care with the way you dole out these rewards and your users will come back for more.

Understand that diminishing engagement is inevitable and try to keep things fresh with planned updates that have new content or mechanics, or entirely new loops.

Finally, remember that the best way to create engagement is to provide real utility to your users. So, crack that first, and then consider your reward system.