During this week I participated in a Gamification Design workshop, so I thought this could be a good inspiration post to share here. For many of you, this isn’t nothing new and probably you already are using it, but for those who aren’t aware, here goes some info.

So what is Gamification?
As the name suggests, it`s a technique based on the same principles of pure gaming, that uses elements of game in a different context, usually boring, doing it in a Fun way in order to achieve a predefined purpose.

The Misunderstanding
For some Gamification is adding Points, Badges and Leaderboards to a product, well for You-Kay Chou that’s not the way.

You-Kay Chou is an entrepreneur, speaker, and gamification pioneer, that became obsessed with the combination of how to make games more productive, and simultaneously, how to make life more fun. So he is focused in explore how to use Gamification to make a positive impact on our work and life.

Yu-kai Chou: Gamification & Behavioral Design

Octalysis
You-Kay Chou created Octalysis, his own gamification framework. Based on his experience and tries to improve the gamification design process, and with this tool he enables users to develop the Octalysis for their own product/process based on eight core drives. You can get more info on is site www.yukaichou.com.

Here you can see an example of Oclalysis applied to Facebook.

Gamification is being used with success for many different purposes, by companies, ONG, governments, scientists.

 

Foldit Solves puzzles for science
This is one of the most impressive and successful examples of Gamification, Foldit is a revolutionary crowdsourcing computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research.

Become a foldit  player here https://fold.it/

In 2011, Foldit players helped decipher the crystal structure of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV) retroviral protease, an AIDS-causing monkey virus, a scientific problem that had been unsolved for 15 years. Although the puzzle was available for three weeks, players produced an accurate 3D model of the enzyme in just ten days. ( .. in Wikipedia ).

 

 

 

Speed Camera Lottery reduces the average speed of drivers
Another cool example of Gamification success is this project, the objective was to reduce the average speed of drivers, so each time you pass the camera radar under the speed limit you will be able to gain a money price, that you will receive at home. The price money comes from the builds to the other drivers that did not respect the speed limits.

 

So let’s make a better world having Fun with Gamification