Octalysis Certificate Achiever: Sébastien Dostie
Sébastien Dostie (LinkedIn) earned his Octalysis Certificate by applying the Octalysis Framework to a real product — a meaningful step in mastering Human-Focused Design.
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
How Sébastien Earned His Octalysis Level 1 Certificate
Sébastien attended the 2020 Behavioral Design Masterclass to sharpen his Human-Focused Design skills.
As part of the Masterclass, he decided to go further and submit for his Octalysis Certificate. In his submission, Sébastien analyzed Hardbacon, a Canadian financial app from FinTech startup Hardbacon Inc. (Note: Hardbacon ceased operations in March 2025.) The app’s mission was to help users take control of their personal finances.
Although Hardbacon was successful at presenting financial status, Sébastien identified that the app fell short in helping users actively control their finances through the stock market.
The Octalysis Certificate requires candidates to apply the full Octalysis Framework — analyzing the 8 Core Drives of human motivation, building a Strategy Dashboard, and brainstorming concrete improvements. Core Drive 2 (Development & Accomplishment) is especially relevant to financial apps: users are motivated by visible progress toward wealth goals. Core Drive 6 (Scarcity & Impatience) also plays a role — the urgency of financial decision-making drives action.
I believe that putting Hardbacon through the Octalysis lens has the potential to shine lights on how to improve the experience.
Sébastien Dostie
Wow! Thank you for this new round of feedback. Makes me want to review it again as you bring very interesting questions and observations.
Sébastien Dostie
Well done on your submission and attaining your Octalysis Certificate, Sébastien. Congratulations!
Do you want to join a community of learners and bring your knowledge of Human-Focused Design to the next level? Try out Octalysis Prime for free.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- Hall of Fame — All Octalysis Certificate Achievers
- What is Gamification?
- Human-Focused Design
- Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
- Books by Yu-kai Chou