This document discusses the fundamentals of gamification and motivation. It outlines several dimensions of motivation, including relatedness, mastery, competence, and self-expression. It provides examples of how Strava, a social network for cyclists, and open source software communities effectively leverage different motivational dimensions through their design. The document argues that for gamification to be successful, one must understand the core components of motivation and how they vary for different user profiles to achieve business objectives. A simplistic focus only on points and badges often leads to failed gamification efforts.

1. Marc Resnick
Bentley University, Professor
Usability Solutions, Founder
mresnick@bentley.edu
@PerformSol
305-443-3765
humanfactors.blogspot.com

2. We have gone
gamification crazy

3. But most implementations don’t seem to
know what they are doing !

4. “Gartner Says by 2014,
80% of
Current Gamified Applications
Will Fail to
Meet Business Objectives
Primarily Due to Poor Design”

5. Just like a great chef can turn basic
ingredients into a masterpiece

6. A bad chef can turn them into
a trip to the emergency room

7. But why do we need to be chefs?

9. Let’s take just one ingredient . . .

10. Can’t we motivate everyone with pointsification . . .

11. Autonomy
Mastery
Relatedness
Do we need to consider a few motivational dimensions . . .

12. Or do we need a whole language of motivation to cover it all?

13. Let’s break motivation down into its basic components
Relatedness
• one to one bonding with a valued
colleague
• belonging to the in-group
• collaboration with others towards
a common goal
• competition with another to show
superiority
• nurturing, family, and mentorship
• (friends list)
Mastery
• successes heralded in song
• external validation through public
awareness of your success
• internal validation because you
know of your success
• (trophies and leaderboards)
Accumulation
• collection of sets
• (virtual goods)
Competence
• physical and mental health
• stability, tranquility, and
absence of anxiety
• fairness and justice
• idealism and honor
• (badges, levels, points)
Self-expression
• design part of the game world
used by others
• design part of the world used
by yourself
• design part of the world used
by yourself and in-group
Disruption
• fight the power
• white hat hacking
• (scam the fools)

14. But each user is motivated by a
different set of motivators and in different proportions
Community
Status
Competition
Relatedness
Competence
Disruption
Mastery

15. Strava Cyclist Gamified
Social Network
Relatedness
• uses can follow anyone (like TW)
• users can look for skill-matched
partners to bike with
• users can compete within selected
friend group
• users can join teams for aggregate
scoring
• users can link to mentors for advice
• there is an extensively used chat for
collaborative and trash talking
• there is a strong member affinity
Mastery
• time leaderboards on set segments
are listed, overall and by demo
• users can list personal records
Competence
• quantified self features
demonstrate extreme fitness
• users can link their HR to measure
their “suffer” score
• users can compete anonymously
• there is an honor code to reduce
cheating
Self-expression
• users’ newly discovered routes can
be added
• users have reasonably rich profiles
Disruption
• groups draft one rider to jump a
time record
• users can log illegal trails for others
to follow

16. Open Source Software
Relatedness
• communicating with specific leading
and noted developers
• belonging to the open-source
community in-group
• working with other developers on
new modules
• mentoring new developers as they
onboard to the community
Mastery
• status as an expert developer
• internal confidence emanating from
the acceptance of code
contributions
Extrinsic value
• paid bonuses from employer for
contributing
• career advancement based on part
on contributions to code
development
Competence
• being a valued member of the
open source community
• having personal contributions
added to the next software build
• subscribing to the open source
honor code
Self-expression
• expressing one’s software
development style in the code
Disruption
• create free software that
competes with established
corporate systems

17. And if we do this with:
• X motivations
• X player profiles
• X processes to cover
• X usage scenarios
• X time frames
•
•
•
•
•
X learning curves
X feedback mechanisms
X reward types
X customization models
X hardware and software
constraints
We get 6,423,678,124,013 possible combinations (approximately)

20. There is a way, if you know the fundamentals
business
objectives
user
profiles
game
element
game
mechanic
UI
brain
mechanic
ST
behavior
game
dynamic
LT
behavior

21. For Group Discussion
Strengths of Gamification
• Long term engagement
• Build intrinsic motivation
• Focusing users on key
outcomes
• White hat hackgamers
Obstacles to Gamification
• Short term thinking
• Contestification
• Distracting users with points
and badges
• Disruptors and game grinders