You are a forward thinking company and have heard about gamification. You have done your research and feel that you are confident enough to push forward and start looking at applying gamification to your organisation. Now what?
First, decide what you are going to gamify. It sounds simple, but it is very easy to just decide to use gamification and then not have any idea what you will use it on.
Next, decide why you are going to gamify it. This is a bit harder. A lot of people have it in their minds that gamifying a system will make it better – simple as that. Sadly, it is not a magic bullet. There is a term that floats around those in gamification, Pointsification. This is what we call a system that has been gamified by purely adding a layer of points, badges and ladders without any thought as to WHY the system is being gamified and HOW to make best use of it. More often than not this is done to try and improve a system that is badly made in the first place.
Gamification will not make a poorly created system, or an unintuitive interface better. In fact, it will just make the system worse. If that is why you want to gamify something, stop now. Make sure that it is already good in its own right. Rebuild it and include gamification, but don’t try and use gamification to varnish over the cracks.
Once you have the why, it is time for HOW. This is where you need to start thinking about talking to companies that know what they are doing – or employing someone who knows what they are doing. With the best will in the world, you probably don’t know enough to implement this successfully alone! There are things that you can think about though and I find Badgeville’s three key mechanics handy here. Game Mechanics, Reputation Mechanics and Social Mechanics.
Game mechanics or elements are important, these are the bits that are generally most visible. They are things like feedback, rewards, challenges and the like. Whilst these can be superficial, used in the right way they can really help in the early stages of system adoption and also keep certain types of user engaged. They have to be used with care though.
Reputation mechanics focus on how you can use the actions of your users to promote them within the system. So for instance on Stack Exchange as a person answers more questions, they earn greater status within the site. Greater status can not only lead to respect from other users but could be used to give those users extra features and responsibilities within the site.
Social mechanics, in my mind the most overlooked aspect of gamification, help keep users engaged with your system. They help connect users to people, help them find answers when they need them and much more. Many sites like Facebook and Twitter use the information they have about you to suggest people that may be of interest to you, based on your areas of interest. Take that to an internal site and you have an efficient way of connecting your workforce with people that they may never have had any access too on the past.
Finally, set aside a good budget and a realistic amount of time. As I say, there are professional services out there that can help. There is a cost and it takes time, doing it right is not cheap. Free solutions provide you with exactly what you paid for!
Companies like Badgeville, PugPharm, Bunchball, and Bigdoor (among others) all offer platforms and experts. Each has its own approach and each has its own benefits. Look around at the solutions out there, see what clients they have and talk to them.