Badge Gamification: Why Most Achievement Badges Fail
Learn why most badge gamification fails, how achievement symbols should be designed, and what separates meaningful recognition from…
Work with Yu-kai
The Blog
Gamification Study
Articles on Gamification Study — from Yu-kai Chou, creator of the Octalysis Framework.
4 Keys 2 Fun Part 2: Hard Fun, Easy Fun & People Fun Mapped to Octalysis
Nicole Lazzaro’s 4 Keys 2 Fun framework is useful for the same reason any strong model is useful:…
Left Brain (Extrinsic) vs Right Brain (Intrinsic) Core Drives in Gamification
What if the most critical distinction in motivation design isn’t between “fun” and “boring”, but between the reason…
Thornbush Weakness: How to Turn Your Biggest Flaw Into Your Greatest Asset (Game Design Technique #125)
Why would a lawyer deliberately tell the jury that his client is a terrible person? Why would a…
How Rewards kill our Creativity
What if the rewards meant to boost your performance are actually making you worse at solving problems? In…
Streak Design: The 5 Steps Behind Duolingo’s Daily Loop
Streak design is the practice of rewarding a user for repeating one action on consecutive days and showing…
Game Design Techniques: the Onboarding Bundle
If users don’t know what to do within four seconds of landing on your interface, they start feeling…
The 8 Core Drives of Gamification #3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
What if a single game mechanic could keep users engaged not for weeks or months, but for decades?…
The Strategy Dashboard for Gamification Design
The Octalysis Strategy Dashboard: 5 Elements of Engagement Design [2026 Guide] This is Step 1 of the 5-Step…