A Designer's Guide to Gamification in UX Design

Unless and until you are a designer and a gamer, there's a lesser chance that you might have heard this term. Gamification is a term is focused on game applications. In a typical setting, the gamification in the UX design process allows people to use game mechanics in a product to delight users.

Gamification in UX Design is primarily associated with the addition of gaming elements. These elements improvise a user's experience by motivating them through different means. For instance, badges and leaderboards can significantly incentivize the end-users to take action within an app. Gamification elements are inserted into a product after an in-depth psychological analysis of a design decision's good and bad effects. Most of the time, gamification is misunderstood as game design. However, both concepts work differently. While the game design focuses on applying design principles of entertaining purposes, gamification of UX Design is focused on building interactive user engagement for specific applications.

A designer needs to take care of six core aspects to ensure that gamification is applied to UX Design. These aspects also ensure that a user retains the motivation to act. With that said, here's all you need to know for gamification in UX Design:

1. Challenges

Challenges are one of the easiest ways to retain a user on an app. These challenges are usually incorporated in the form of mini-tasks. These tasks are always a part of a mission-based journey that lasts for weeks or days. For example, daily heart points in the google fit mobile app are the best examples of a challenge type design inclusion.

2. Points

Users can be rewarded upon the collection of specific amounts of points. This type of UX Design principle motivates to do particular tasks frequently. For example, Snapchat streaks always increment by one if people involved in building a streak share at least one photo or video per day.

3. Leaderboards

Racing games often rank players based on their position when crossing the finish line. This ranking is referred to as leaderboards. Such kinds of leaderboards can be utilized to socialize with other contenders on the list.

4. Badges and Stickers

Stickers and badgers are often status symbols. These badges are assigned upon completing a goal or a specific task. For instance, google pay incentivizes several transactions done by people to reward users with coupons or cashback.

5. Journeys

To receive a path, one must walk a path. User journeys, also known as app progressions, are ideal for traversing users within a product from one point to another. Upon completing the journey, a user may be rewarded with some incentive. Although the information architecture of reaching a destination might seem challenging to people, they may begin to learn it gradually. All it takes is to lure the customers into participating in the user journey.

That's all you need to know about the basics of gamification of UX Design. These aspects can serve as fundamental principles of design gamification in UX Design and help designers craft emotional flair.

If you wish to know more about Gamification in UX Design, check out the Gamification in Design course on ProApp. It covers all you need to be a gamification expert. Principles, motivations, components, and pro tips are some of the biggest highlights of this course. So, what are you waiting for? Download the app and start learning today!