The Sunday Mail
Mugonat Systems
A MODERN consumer has access to global applications provided by big corporates and unicorn start-ups.
This raises user experience expectations regardless of the provider’s location or budget.
With more and more mobile apps dominating the market, it is harder for mobile application developers to stand out among competitors, and users expect companies to go the extra mile in relation to user experience.
This raised the bar to a point where a good and stable mobile app is no longer sufficient: that is where gamification enters the fray.
According to Forbes 2022 publication, gamification and game-based learning have been popular for the last decade and are predicted to remain in trend in the future. Gamification is a powerful tool to acquire, engage, and retain users.
SAP Gigya found that gamification boosts engagement by 33 percent, with online commenting rising by 13 percent, social media sharing by 22 percent, and content discovery by 68 percent.
Gamification goes beyond attracting users to an application, but also ensure that they return time and again. On gamified apps, users enjoy playing while getting things done, killing two birds with one stone.
Gamification involves applying game dynamics from games to the business applications. It is the use of game elements and design techniques in a non-gaming environment.
It takes major elements of games such as competition, strategy, action, fun, and applies them through game mechanics, like points, badges and leader boards.
Gamification uses an aspect of psychology that thrives on competition, engagement, and reward.
A study in the Frontiers of Human Neuroscience found that gamification works in a similar way to video games. They also noted that “Video games contain elaborate reinforcement and reward schedules that have the potential to maximise motivation”. The concept of gamification is to replicate the benefits of video games, for example, improvement of cognitive behaviour.
Gamified elements help to trigger a sense of achievement and thus motivates users to use your app even more. Creating such gaming experience within a non-game app will be pleasurable for your users.
You don’t need to rebuild your app, you can just offer some fun experience to your consumers and thus improve the interaction and retention and attract more users.
To get users to take your desired action, engagement is critical. You have to capture their attention and give them both the motivation and means to act. Gamification enables that level of engagement. By making app usage fun and appealing to people’s competitive nature, you can deliver on your goals while keeping users happy and hungry for more.
Some common elements of gamification used in productivity apps include:
- Reward system – Apps use points, coins, and other items to reward a user whenever they accomplish a particular task/activity.
- Challenges – Can be in the form of quests, puzzles, riddles, missions, etc.
- Story lines– Some apps come with a compelling storyline that captures the interest of the users, keeping them more engaged and committed to using the apps.
- Competition – Users tend to use apps more if they can track their progress and compare it with that of other users. App leader boards encourage friendly competition among users, which also helps users do more of their intended activities.
The ultimate goal of gamification is to create ‘sticky’ apps where people stay engaged and return for more. It’s worth noting that gamification is NOT a makeover tool and neither does it have a ‘Midas’ touch: if your app is not working properly, it probably won’t matter anyway.
‘Good’ and ‘Great’ are so close yet so far, if done right, gamification will bridge that gap ushering in your app’s biggest transformation from the ordinary use to an exceptional experience.
*Mugonat Systems is an ICT services provider offering software development and cybersecurity consultancy services in the SADC region
