Gamification means taking features from video games and applying them to out-of-game settings: business operations, social projects, classrooms, etc. If you’ve tried to learn a new language through an app, you’re familiar with its basic elements. These are reward badges, across-the-app user ratings, instant feedback mechanisms, gentle scolding for missing a learning day — you got it.
Some of the oldest gamification examples include Boy Scouts, an organization that gives members badges when they successfully master a skill. Another one is the military complex, with its honorary rewards and complicated promotion system.
The main goal of gamification is to get people to participate in different activities. Businesses use this engaging technique to increase the number of user interactions, app activity, and sales. Companies that implement game mechanics into their product (or into a product's presentation on their website) can increase conversion rates up to 7 times. The secret is the dopamine-inducing game features: what user doesn’t like unlocking achievements?
Let’s take a look at what exactly your business and your company users will achieve after integrating gamification into your app.
Interactive Format Of Learning
Sometimes, learning is tedious. The gap between theory and practice is rarely small, and people often struggle with tailoring what they’ve learned to where this knowledge is supposed to be applied. So, if your app offers learning activities, gamification would help you liven up the process and make it more fun.
Simulations within the app can guide people through what they need to do, inviting them to practice in a risk-free environment. It can be vital if the target users of your app work in healthcare, manufacturing, chemistry-related fields, and so on. There is a gamified app by Diversido that helps health practitioners go through sedation training via simulations and comprehensive tests based on small, easily digestible chunks of information.
Dividing complex info into quick sessions with real-life examples is a great fit for users who have a short attention span. Rewards and success ratings within these e-learning systems invite competitive participation and give employees a feeling of accomplishment. It is called microlearning, and it’s popular in, for instance, corporate education because it drives employees’ performance without triggering cognitive overload.
High Engagement Level
Interactivity often implies taking part in making a story. It forces users to involve, and positive reinforcements (badges, a place on the leaderboard) reward them for involvement. Breaking down elaborate explanations and dry theory into small bits and framing them as, for example, a dialogue between two characters, followed by test questions, makes the info much more digestible. Realistic situations, conflicts, and challenges are a good way to apply recently acquired knowledge.
One of the gamification elements — the progress bar — allows users to create a story themselves. Developers often build it in healthcare, wellness, and fitness apps, where people try to stick to their meds or maintain a new healthy habit — in other words, change their behavior. Various progress trackers are often gamified to reward users for adding another entry to the mood journal or walking more than 3,000 steps. These features drive engagement up, compelling users to keep adding to their story every day.
Another way gamification drives engagement is through socializing. Along with the rating system, the app developers include community-based features that allow people to share their results, compete with each other, or celebrate each other’s victories.
Regular Real-Time Feedback
Real-time feedback — from the system or different-level users — can help study more efficiently and avoid misunderstandings that frequently stem from a postponed response. In an e-learning app for a business, managers can give tips and recommendations after noticing that a new employee is stuck. It also provides managers with data on employees' performance and insights about the cohesiveness of their onboarding materials.
In mHealth apps, instant notifications or pop-ups would, for instance, analyze users' exercise routine (if the app is integrated with wearables) — or give them encouragement after a sad journal entry.
Better Information Retention
A study showed that students retain information up to 25% better when learning through gamification. Human memories aren't built for learning theory only. People are efficient when they immediately use the thing they’ve learned. Gamification provides studying by practicing via simulations in tests or VR, interactive videos, conversations with people in the same community, etc. All of that makes memorization more efficient.
Another reason why gamification-based solutions help retain memories better is that within them, users make active choices to do things. Agency activates the brain's executive function that is responsible for strategizing and decision-making, vital aspects of our personal development. It helps utilize the theory the users are seeing and root it in the working memory. The app's interface, on the other hand, should eliminate all distractions that can interrupt this process, so an environment for efficient learning is set.
High Level Of Motivation
Encouraging motivation is vital for every solution: project management and e-learning software, apps for meditation, walking trackers, etc. System of rewards (badges, encouragements) and, sometimes, punishments (negative scores, lost progress) help motivate users to do what they’re doing regularly.
Competition is also a strong motivator — however, features related to it should be regarded with nuance and backed up with user research. According to a study that researched gamification-driven learning apps for doctors, while in some cases, competition drives people to do better and improves learning outcomes, in others, it shifts the goal from “master a thing” to “beat the opponent,” which reduces learning efficiency.
Final Thoughts On Gamification For Business
To conclude: gamification is a powerful driver of user engagement. Game mechanics, often expressed in notifications and goading users to come back and continue their progress, trigger frequent user activity and increase retention. On the user’s side, the value is immense: if designed carefully, apps with gamification are an excellent helper in learning new things, getting new habits, changing behaviors and thinking patterns (that’s why gamification is often implemented in mental health apps).
In the beginning, the article mentioned that gamification helps increase conversions. You can do it in different ways: through introducing a new app to your offline business and designing experiences connected to your product and stories about it; via creating an interactive website, where engaging stories showcase the variety of your services; or by integrating addicting game mechanics into the development of your app. Whatever your business chooses, it promises to be an efficient method of keeping your customers and employees interested.
