{"id":930,"date":"2010-06-29T08:39:16","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T07:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=930"},"modified":"2019-11-06T17:45:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:45:02","slug":"applying-games-ux-lessons-makes-dull-tasks-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/29\/applying-games-ux-lessons-makes-dull-tasks-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Applying Games UX lessons makes dull tasks fun!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently watched Sebastian Deterding\u2019s presentation \u2018Just Add Points?\u2019<\/a>. It covers applying lessons learnt from games to software, to make software more enjoyable to use. The talk then goes on to cover where this model traditionally falls down, before rebuilding a model with new rules. \u00a0The presentation was engaging, very well designed and a good extension of the principles within Ralph Koster\u2019s book, applying its lessons to the real world, and therefore well worth a look.<\/p>\n

The presentation first covers ways in which the UX lessons learnt from games have, or can, be applied to dull tasks to incentivise people to do them. Some examples of this can be found on Volkswagen\u2019s thefuntheory.com website, such as turning a staircase into a piano<\/a> to encourage people to take the stairs, or turning a bottle bank into a game<\/a> to encourage people to recycle.<\/p>\n

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\"recycling\"

all the encouragement I need...<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Deterding does provide some critical analysis of this model \u2013 what happens on day 2, for example? Is it still fun to recycle? I also question the justification provided by Volkswagen that the bottle bank performed better than a standard one. Although it did in the example, when the user was provided with a choice between two geographically-close bottle banks, this fails to be a conclusive proof of the fun bottle bank being more effective at encouraging recycling. (would the \u2018dull\u2019 one receive an equal amount of recycling to the fun one if there was no alternative \u2013 what about over a number of months?)<\/p>\n

The typical theory of fun is that \u2018adding points\u2019 will magically make dull activities fun, because of It adds competition, re-playability, and a new \u2018meta-game\u2019 to the activity taking place. However, Deterding\u2019s presentation challenges this, and says that \u2018just adding points\u2019 is a too simplistic understanding of the application of fun to menial tasks. Instead, games present an optimized version of many positive psychological features of real life, and through the recognition of this, real life can be optimised.<\/p>\n

As I discussed in my review of Ralph Koster\u2019s book<\/a>, \u2018fun\u2019 is the act of learning and successfully applying, and adapting the knowledge learnt, and typically games present an adaption of this. Games optimise \u2018fun\u2019 because:<\/p>\n