This article was written by Erik van Mechelen, based on the Octalysis framework designed by Yu-kai Chou
Human-focused Finance
The main takeaway from Yu-kai Chou’s Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards is that design experiences, particularly those involving gamification, need to be designed for humans. That’s why Yu-kai refers to them as human-focused.
Finance should be human-focused too. It’s not only about numbers and making them better. It is about improving our relationship to money, making it easy for families to track expenses and investments, and helping businesses manage their contractors and make deals.
Here are the top 10 finance apps to watch (or use!) in 2017.
As always, I’ll refer to the 8 Core Drives of Octalysis. As a bonus, I will mention a few Game Techniques along the way, too!
Edit: I also just learned about SaveUp.com (earn credits for financial behaviors), SmartyPig.com (automate transfers to digital piggy banks earmarked for savings goals), and Trade Samurai (learning Forex trading). These are very solid as well!
This is a follow-up to last week’s post on What are Learning Games. One of the most promising applications of gamification is to enhance the learning experiences of children. The teaching tools of today are no longer limited to chalkboards, whiteboards, flashcards, textbooks and worksheets. Games offer kids more interactive options.
“There is no commandment which says, thou shall not have fun,” says one YouTuber who discussed the use of games for educational purposes. They can enrich a child’s understanding of information rather effortlessly. And with games, learning feels effortless, as opposed to being an aggravating chore.
But be forewarned. It is important to choose your educational game wisely. Just because it is packaged as a learning tool, does not automatically justify its worth. David Kleeman President of the American Center for Children and Media sums this up well as he says:
“I love and support the idea of tapping the engagement and strategic thinking of game play, but I’ve also seen very poor examples that are little more than gussied-up rote learning,”
With that said, here is my list of Top Ten Learning Games for Kids. They range from the teaching of simple and intermediate academics to more complex real life skills.
Learning Game #1: Dragon Box
Why wait until middle school to start learning Algebra? While some students excel in this subject, it is certainly not everyone’s favorite. Many kids learn to solve equations very mechanically without really understanding the underlying concepts at work.
In Dragon Box visual elements are used to represent the idea of balancing two sides within a closed system. The goal is to eliminate all unnecessary elements to get the box all by itself. The game progresses to higher levels which more closely approximates the types of equations that kids will eventually face in school.
I remember for my childhood (yes, even as an Asian kid), I hated math. It was the most annoying and boring subject. It was the epitome of “school work,” and it was what many parents cared about the most. I also know A LOT of other kids thought like me too.
The amazing thing about Dragon Box is that little kids LOVE to play it without knowing that they are solving complex math. There has been many case studies where 4+ year olds are mastering and solving thousands of middle school Algebra problems!
This is the epitome of a learning game – making something boring fun and exciting!
Learning Game #2: Mind Snacks
Mind Snacks is an interactive app that teaches words and phrases in different languages such as Spanish, Chinese, French, German and Japanese. There is also the option to choose SAT vocabulary. Instead of learning through rote memorization and repetition, fun touch screen games are used.
Most kids don’t like being confined to a desk with a textbook. But with Mind Snacks, they can learn foreign words and phrases in informal settings, such as waiting in line, or even during a long car trip.
Childhood is the best time to learn new languages. The earlier this is done, the better. With games like Mind Snacks, kids can optimize this valuable window of opportunity instead of waiting until middle school or even high school.
By the way, I must add that I have been playing this game for a while to learn Spanish myself, and it is by far the most fun learning experience I have had towards Spanish (comparable to playing Diablo III in Spanish).
The difference to this and Duolingo, is that Duolingo gamifies the Meta-game towards language learning, where Mind Snacks make the learning part itself fun!
Learning Game #3: DIY.org
Projects like baking a cake, knitting a scarf, planting a garden or even making toys can give kids an immense sense of Development & Accomplishment (Core Drive#2) and Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback. They also learn that not everything of value needs to be store bought, especially when they can use their own abilities to create these things.
Do it yourself projects teach problem solving skills, artistic sensibilities, resourcefulness and independence. They also help bring out the creativity that is inherent in all of us.
The site, DIY.org has an app called DIY – Get Skills, Be Awesome. Kids can showcase their creations and even share them in a larger community. This social aspect allows them to receive validation from peers their own age, not just from mom and dad (Core Drives #3 and #5)
Learning Game #4: Code Spells
More parents are realizing how important it is for kids to learn how to code, especially since this is a highly marketable skill. However, programming is not offered as a core subject in school for small children yet. But with a game like Code Spells, writing code becomes a fun pastime, not an extra learning course.
Players must help gnome characters perform certain tasks by using magic. But the spells they use need to be written in Java code.
A study on 40 girls (ages 10-12), showed that learning code was actually quite effortless due to this game. And some of the subjects even expressed disappointment that the game was over too soon. A highly addictive experience combined with immense learning equates to a fabulous learning game indeed!
I remember when I took my first computer class in Visual Basic, it was so boring and dull that I gave up on it quickly for the exciting topic of Economics (that eventually disappointed me), which led to a great regret for me because now being a professional in the tech world, I truly wished I learned more programming when I was younger. Hopefully this can prevent other kids from having the same regret later (and who knows, maybe it’s not too late for me!)
Learning Game #5: Scribble Naughts
Scribble Naughts is a media creation game for kids around ages 8-11 which teaches creative problem solving skills through imaginative scenarios that involve logic, spelling and creativity.
Players are given a particular challenge to solve. And they can do this by summoning just about anything they can think of, by typing it into a field.
Imaginations can run wild with all the different possibilities that can be brought to life. Players can even create new puzzles that can be shared with others (Core Drive #3 Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback).
If the super hero Green Lantern had played this game growing up, he would have eliminated his biggest weakness – lack of spontaneous creativity.
Learning Game #6 Dora’s Cooking Club
Dora’s Cooking Club is for ages 4-6. Most younger kids love Dora. So using this character to inspire learning in children is already a huge plus.
Kids learn about numbers, fractions, shapes and Spanish as they help Dora and her grandmother prepare a delicious Mexican meal.
Children are likely to play this game voluntarily as opposed to doing exercises in a workbook.
Unfortunately, this is a bit out of my league…I haven’t found the strength in me to master this game and be addictively edutained for months.
Learning Game #7. Game Star Mechanic
An important life skill (which is difficult to teach) is to come up with a good, creative idea and develop it through a process of logical steps.
With Game Star Mechanic, kids are given the opportunity to hone this ability by making their own games and sharing them with others. According to their site, their community has over 250,000 designers whose games have been played over 5 million times. Game Star Mechanic is even being used by teachers in classroom settings to fulfill STEM requirements.
If I had played this game on game design growing up, I would have become an even stronger Gamification Expert (assuming that this is physically possible).
Learning Game #8: SimCity
SimCity is one of the original awesome Learning/Productive/Serious Games in the industry that really got the hearts and minds of players. Eventually, you learn that it also gets the brains of players.
The makers of SimCity have come out with educational version (Sim City EDU) to fulfill classroom STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) requirements. Kids are asked to build virtual cities as they learn about socio-economic development, urban planning and environmental management.
This holistic framework helps kids develop big picture thinking styles where they learn how specific actions affect a larger system such as an entire city.
I wasn’t a big fan of this game when I was younger (it’s because I messed up the water piping and sewage system in my city the first time playing and gave up), but one of my best friends who loved this game ended up being an Architect – graduating from Architecture Association, one of the top architectural universities in the world.
Learning Game #9: Mindblown Life
Teaching money management skills often takes the form of stern lecturing between parents and their young adult children.
Mindblown Life is a game that is designed to teach money management skills to teens. Multiple players participate and interact with one another as they try to balance their professional and personal lives to avoid overspending (Core Drive #8: Loss and Avoidance).
Cofounder, Tracy Moore spoke to Mashable and said, “We’re at an unsustainable point in financial literacy…If we don’t do something now, the tomorrow that exists will be dramatically different from the one we imagined and the one we want.”
Albeit, money management is particularly critical in today’s economy. However, it is something that is best learned through the feel of managing your own money (Core Drive #4: Ownership & Possession). Mindblown Life is therefore a wonderful tool to help impart these life lessons.
Learning Game #10: The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom
Perhaps the most striking characteristic is the look and feel of the game, which is done in stunning black and white graphics. According to Destructoid.com, “All of the art is downright beautiful to look at…there’s a simple elegance to every detail in the levels and story frames that draws you in.”
The player moves through the game as a pie stealing character named PB Winterbottom. The player’s strategies can involve cloning him or even manipulating time.
Critical thinking and problem solving skills can indeed be cultivated effortlessly through imaginative and immersive digital activities such as Misadventures. This is like the kid version of “Portal,” where an understanding of physics (and the fun places where you can break the laws of physics!) become engaging and critical to solving the problems.
Conclusion on Learning Games
Most people think of games as being strictly recreational. But this does not necessarily have to be the case. Games can help kids of all ages master learning feats without the struggle and frustration that is often felt in formal learning contexts. When designed properly, they can boost feelings of confidence, accomplishment (Core Drive #2) and self efficacy. They offer excellent opportunities for players to tap into enormous reserves of creativity and problem solving abilities. And best of all, they can be incredibly enjoyable.
(Thanks to Christine Yee for tremendously helping me on this post)
What is Gamification? This may be an unfamiliar word for many of you. As a leading author and pioneer of the industry (since 2003), I’m here to help you grasp the promise of gamification and clear up some misconceptions in the industry.
Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and addicting elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities. This is what I call “Human-Focused Design” as opposed to the “Function-Focused Design.” It is a design process that optimizes for the human in the system, as opposed to pure efficiency of the system.
Most systems are “function-focused” designed to get the job done quickly. This is like a factory that assumes that the workers within WILL do their jobs. However, Human-Focused Design remembers that people in the system have feelings, insecurities, and reasons why they want or do not want to do things, and therefore optimizes for their feelings, motivations, and engagement.
The reason we call it gamification is because the gaming industry was the first to master human-focused design. Games have no other purpose than to please the human inside. There are “objectives” in the games, such as killing the dragon or saving the princess, but those are all excuses to simply keep the player happily entertained inside. Since games have spent decades learning how to master motivation and engagement, we are now learning from games, and that is why we call it Gamification.
Games have the amazing ability to keep people engaged for a long time, build relationships and trust between people, and develop their creative potentials.
Unfortunately, many games these days are simply focused on escapism – wasting your life away on something that doesn’t improve your own life nor the life of others.
Imagine if there is a truly addicting game, where the more time you spend on it, the more productive you would be. You would be playing all day, enjoying it, and your career would be growing, you would be making more income, having better relationships with your family, creating value for your community, and solving the hardest problems in the world.
That is the goal I strive for and the potential I see that Gamification could fulfill.
What is Gamification in relationship to the Gaming Industry?
Many people think Gamification is a branch of gaming. Upon hearing the term, some people respond with, “Oh I don’t play games.”
That’s a complete misconception on what is gamification all about.
So what is Gamification really? Gamification does not involve games. It is simply absorbing the fun elements in a game (what we call Game Mechanics or Game Design Techniques) into real-world applications. When you see the progress bar on LinkedIn, or when you Tumblr listing out a Leaderboard on the best content, do you think, “Oh I don’t play games. This is not for me.”? Of course not! Continue reading What is Gamification
This post is a high-level introduction to Octalysis, the Gamification Framework I created after more than 17 years of Gamification research and and Behavioral Design study. Within a year of publication, Octalysis was organically translated into 16 languages and became required literature in Gamification instruction worldwide.
What is Gamification?
Gamification is design that places the most emphasis on human motivation in the process. In essence, it is Human-Focused Design (as opposed to “function-focused design”).
Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and engaging elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities. This process is what I call “Human-Focused Design,” as opposed to “Function-Focused Design.” It’s a design process that optimizes for human motivation in a system, as opposed to pure efficiency.
Gamification presentation/research from Sebastian Deterding
I recently stumbled upon some Gamification Research by Sebastian Deterding and I think it is a great piece of work in the industry. It shows a heavy amount of research and utilization of Gamification.
As you know, I have always been saying that Gamification is not really a good word to use (sounds very gimmicky and suggests it is created from games), but it should really be called “Human-Focused Design.”
Sebastian calls it “Gameful Design” which I think is appealing but difficult to gain significant traction.
I strongly recommend going through the entire thing.
(Below is a manuscript snippet of my book, Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. Please subscribe to the mailing list on the right to order the book when it launches. This post may be moved into a Premium Area after a certain period of time. For a video walk-through, check out: Episode 5, The 4 Experience Phases of a Game).
We have covered in much depth and details on how to apply Level 1 Octalysis and the 8 Core Drives to your projects. While I believe a great amount of projects can be massively improved just with a good understanding of Level 1 Octalysis, it does have its limitations.
This is where we introduce the deeper arts of Level 2 Octalysis, particularly how it relates to different phases of a player’s journey.
Treat your product as Four different products
Most people see a product or service as one summed up experience – the product is good, bad, interesting, easy to use, funny or boring. That seems to be intuitive – after all, it is one product.
However, when it comes to user engagement design, I believe that’s a big mistake.
From a motivation standpoint, a user’s interaction and journey with a product is continuously evolving. The reason why a person is using a product on day one is often very different from the reason why this person is using this same product on day one hundred – the goal she is trying to fulfill is different, and even the features she sees are different!
People become involved with a game or a product, not as a single encapsulated event, but through a series of stages where they grow to understand it better. The user experience will develop gradually as familiarity with features and structure is gained.
If a product attracts people at the beginning, but as time goes by becomes boring and uninspiring, that’s a failure in design.
Similarly, if a game offers an amazing experience only after 20 hours of play, but prior to hitting the 20-hour mark it’s boring and torturous, then it almost does not matter as no one will reach that level.
A better way of think about the product is to view it as a user’s journey through evolving phases of product perception or experience. With each phase the product appears to be different – in essence, a unique, different product.
Therefore, a good Octalysis Gamifier can break the process into four distinct products, which emphasizes on the 4 Experience Phases of a Game: Discovery, Onboarding, Scaffolding, and Endgame.
A Level 2 Octalysis Gamifier will then gamify each of those 4 phases in an innovative way that adapts the 8 Core Drives.
In this chapter, we will look at a brief summary of each Experience Phase.
Note that the 4 Phases in Octalysis has certain overlap with UPenn Professor Kevin Werbach’s theories of Identity, Onboarding, Scaffolding, and Mastery.
In fact, I modified my original phrasing to sound more like his because I prefer to have a more unified language with less confusion in the gamification world. My framework is slightly different due to my own experiences but I do want to give Kevin Werbach credit for doing great evangelical and educational work in the industry.
The First Phase in the Player Journey is: Discovery
Crowdsourcing is a method of actionable community engagement that harnesses the collective wisdom, contributions, and capabilities of large numbers of people (i.e. the “crowd” in crowdsourcing). Crowdsourcing has been used to solicit, improve, and address complex virtual and real-world challenges. Some of these applications are in the areas of:
Innovation and creativity
Building accurate and vast knowledge
Solving complex multi-layered problems
Achieving complicated feats within a short span of time
Crowdsourcing utilizes several core behavioral drives that compel users to collectively work together to solve problems (sometimes by breaking them into tedious, and manageable tasks). Wikipedia is one example of a crowdsource information platform that utilizes gamification principles to entice users to curate and publish regular content while holding the community (and its content) responsible for accuracy and quality.
While different crowdsourcing application utilize a wide-range of gamification principles at varying degrees (and with differing success), the decision to implement gamification mechanics depends on the quality of experience the project seeks to offer based on the understanding of their users’ drives and motivations.
In some cases, people may be naturally inspired to contribute their time and efforts towards a particular cause (e.g. Wikipedia). In other instances, it may be beneficial to enhance the experience of the crowdsourced endeavor by making it more immersive and compelling through the integration of key game mechanics.
Here are several examples (in no particular order) which highlight the achievement of large scale or complex feats through the integration of gamification and crowdsourcing.
