Game mechanics for thinking users

http://pietro.open-lab.com/2010/11/09/game-mechanics-for-thinking-users/

by ppolsinelli • 16 years ago

38 6 16 years ago

Game mechanics are one of those things that I can recognize, but am still a total sucker for. Any time something can be quantified, compared, and put up as a leaderboard, I'm pretty much instantly, hopelessly addicted.

This is one of the greatest realizations that Microsoft has come to with the XBox.

stcredzero• 16 years ago

Much of what I read under game mechanics (but not what I read about game design) treats users as basically moronic conditional-reflex slaves. Conditioning users to trivial games is not the only possible usage of game mechanics for function and design.

I think this is a profound observation. I think a part of the attraction of P2P is that it can introduce real complexity into a game. I dislike being treated like a patron of a resort casino.

dpritchett• 16 years ago

Civilization creator Sid Meier says that a game is a series of interesting decisions. I've always liked that view.

johnwatson11218• 16 years ago

When I read the article it reminded me of some ideas I had for for UI design. I get really frustrated in my IDE when I have to click on a folder or a file and it is so small. It seems that systems could build statistical models of what I do all day and resize icons based on what I am likely to click. There seems to be this area between 100% automation and doing things manually that isn't well designed for. Another example is when I have to go and look at log files, I have to click on these tiny folder icons but I do it every day ... why can't the system predict that and make the folder icon larger? Or how about while I'm in the IDE only show things that make sense at that point in time? You might say well there are thousands of things you can do in an IDE but I know that I do about 15 or 20 things day in and day out. I know I could use macros or something but that would be unique to each tool and would have a very stitched together feel to it.

In my opinion the tab completion in the Bash shell is an example of game mechanics used outside of a game.

unoti• 16 years ago

I've used game mechanics to help several business applications I've written.

The most successful example was a workflow application that a team of customer service reps use to answer tickets. The system categories tickets and rates them for severity. Severely rated tickets get a big threat score and go higher in the queue. The system graphs the threat level of open tickets, and shows a google-o-meter to say whether things are looking bad, ok, or great, and then we named those states "Godilla, Pony, and Unicorn". We graph the overall situation over time. So users can see their impact on successfully answering and closing tickets. Each time a user worked a ticket, they could see the little needle rise a little higher, closer to unicorn status.

Productivity skyrocketed as users worked their butts off to keep things in "Unicorn" status.

Users could also see what other teams members were working on in real time-- whether they had a ticket open, and how long it had been open. This helps establish a culture where you want to keep working, because you can see how hard other team members are working.

These mechanics really helped the team stay motivated and working. Without software like this, it can feel hard to stay motivated to work on an endless stream of workflow. It helps combat the feeling of pointlessness when answering so many similar tickets.

The system that I described is currently being used at a major virtual world company for answering customer service tickets. One of the people that used it loved it so much that he got the google-o-meter needle graph that I used tatooed onto his arm, with the word Unicorn written under it.

ppolsinelli• 16 years ago

Thanks for the comments; interesting to see the power and variety of game mechanics applications - for thinking users!

Game mechanics for thinking users

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