gamification
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Gamification is applying the principles of game design to other software or services; some silos use gamification to encourage regular use of their apps and sites, and some such features could be implemented on personal sites to reinforce intentional behaviors.
Originally focused on usability, gamification is often a byword for dark patterns exploiting intermittent reinforcement and leader boards.
Examples of gamification features (alphabetical):
- badge — badges provided ("earned", "unlocked") as a reward for completing some action, thus incentivizing pursuing that action
- leaderboard — a leaderboard shows who on a service or site has done the most of some action or achieved the highest of some kind of score
- posting graph (like a calendar heatmap or posts sparklines) — line or bar chart or other graph showing recent post frequency/count per day or other time period
- streak — a streak is the repeated performance of some action (e.g. publishing a post, sending a message) at some regular frequency (e.g. daily), that is only recognized after some number of instances at that frequency, uninterrupted, e.g. after 5.
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IndieWeb Examples
See the IndieWeb Examples sections in specific gamification features pages: badge, calendar heatmap, leaderboard, posting graph, streak.
Got a gamification feature on your website (or overall gamification design) on your personal site that doesn’t fit into the list of features above?
- Add yourself here… (see this for more details)
Brainstorming
Gamification could be used on personal sites to reinforce the intentional behaviors we want in ourselves.
Criticism
- 2021-05-04 WIRED: The Power and Pitfalls of Gamification / When tech companies first adopted the technique, there was hardly any science supporting it. Now researchers know when gamelike features help—and when they hurt.