A while ago, I was contacted by Andrew Hunt, who shared his work detailing the benefits of Gamification proofing through 3 organizations that used such methods to boost their brand and business. The metrics within his infographic do not need any explanation and I’m happy that we can share them through our blog. Lots of people do not understand the true value of Gamification and, for that matter, how to apply it effectively. A lot of projects, apps and brands tend to stick to the PBL (Points – Badges – Leadership boards) implementation and think this will work, but Gamification does not end or start with PBL’s! It starts with putting the player in the center, understanding your target audience. One has to understand what motivates them, how to activate their dopamine system, what behaviors we want them to show,… And then iterate, try, and learn. In that sense, Gamification comes very close to Design Thinking, where we approach a purpose in a human centric manner and balance analytical and creative processes in an iterative manner. In fact, Gamification, Innovation, Agile, Lean Startup, Customer Development and Design Thinking are all pretty similar in that manner:

We put the audience, human beings, central within our approach.

Engagement, collaboration and motivation are the basic ingredients, mixed with a sauce of game techniques in almost everything I do and as such I am also very interested in the Gamification flavor of doing work. I have been reading a lot about it, experimented with its elements, followed a training about it (certified the class with 91%) and experimented more successfully with it. I have learned and discovered a lot about the subject of Gamification, actually there are more ways to do it wrong than right. Maybe I’ll post some articles about my learnings, experiments in future posts but for know I just want to share the info-graphic sent by Andrew. Thanks Andrew!

Also have a look at original article with the work of Andrew, thanks.