You may have heard of word Gamification. It’s as much a buzzword as it is a new academic field. Many people are interested in what it is and how to use it effectively, but don’t know why it works. It’s clear why, since games excite us by driving our curiosity to discover something new. They make us feel accomplished when we overcome a difficult challenge or reach personal objectives. Games help us learn and encourage us to experiment, develop strategies, and learn new skills. Gamification takes core elements of what we love about games and applies them outside of traditional gameplay environments. Everyone is talking about the benefits of gamification and how it will increase engagement in the classroom, or help us stay fit and healthy, or improve our productivity in the workplace.
Here is a clip from our new whiteboard #animation! Candy crush-angry birds 🎮! Watch it here: https://t.co/QgMGQZDdSC pic.twitter.com/R1v4mn59vc
— HCI Games Group (@hcigamesgroup) July 14, 2016
To help you understand the basics of gamification, we created the video below, which should help you become familiar with the topic. Dr. Nacke and the HCI Games Group have studied Gamification for several years, and created this short video to give you a foundational understanding of the term and the application of gamification. It is our hope that this introduction will be useful for anyone just getting started with gamification.
You should now have a good understanding of what gamification is, what it isn’t, and how it’s being used to improve our everyday activities. Now that you are in-the-know, you might want to know a bit more about gamification. Lucky for you there is lots of information available online and there is even more to learn about gamification.
Here are some articles that we recommend ♥
- Gamification: An Introduction slide deck
- What is Gamification
- Level Up! The role of progression for gameful design
- Challenge Accepted! The role of challenge for gameful design
Check out our research on gamification ♜
- The HEXAD Gamification User Types Questionnaire : Background and Development Process. L. Diamond, G. F. Tondello, A. Marczewski, L. E. Nacke, and M. Tscheligi In Workshop on Personalization in Serious and Persuasive Games and Gamified Interactions. London, UK. 2015.
- The Kaleidoscope of Effective Gamification: Deconstructing Gamification in Business Applications. D. L. Kappen and L. E. Nacke In Proceedings of Gamification 2013. Stratford, ON, Canada. ACM, 119–122, 2013.
- Adaptive Engagement of Older Adults’ Fitness through Gamification. D. L. Kappen In Proceedings of CHI PLAY 2015. London, United Kingdom. ACM, 2015.
- From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining “Gamification”
S. Deterding, D. Dixon, R. Khaled, and L. E. Nacke - Designing Gamification: Creating Gameful and Playful Experiences
S. Deterding, S. L. Björk, L. E. Nacke, D. Dixon, and E. Lawley - More publications from the HCI Games Group
Dr. Gustavo Tondello is currently an instructional support coordinator for the Cheriton School of Computer Science. He was a Ph.D. student at the University of Waterloo under supervision of Dr. Lennart Nacke and Dr. Daniel Vogel and graduate researcher at the HCI Games Group. He is a co-founder of MotiviUX and member of the International Gamification Federation. His research interests include gamification and games for health, wellbeing, and learning, user experience in gamification, and gameful design methods. His work focuses on the design and personalization of gameful applications. His recent publications advanced the current knowledge on player and user motivations in games and gameful applications and introduced new frameworks and approaches to designing personalized gameful applications and serious games. He periodically blogs about gamification for the HCI Games Group and on his personal blog, Gameful Bits. Before coming to Canada, Gustavo earned his M.Sc. in Computer Science and his B.Sc. in Information Systems from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and worked for several years as a Software Engineer in Brazil. Gustavo is also a Logosophy researcher affiliated to the Logosophical Foundation of Brazil and North America.
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