How gamification got 30,000 people addicted to our ecommerce app

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If you live near a PokeStop, chances are you’ve witnessed first-hand the addictive power of games and gamification. Pokemon Go serves as a poignant reminder that games can drive stratospheric levels of engagement and loyalty.

Not surprisingly, gamification has remained a hot topic among businesses as a way to boost engagement among customers and employees. The gamification market was worth $1.7b in 2015, and is projected to grow to $11b by 2020. However, success remains elusive, with many estimates showing that the majority of gamification projects fail to meet their objectives.

 The problem is that many treat gamification as a “quick fix”.

The problem is that many implementations treat gamification as a “quick fix” — adding points, leaderboard, and badges on on app without adequate thought to core user needs and motivations.

To be successful, gamification needs to be a thorough, bottoms-up design process of rethinking your app or platform with your customers at the center of that process.

“Gamification is not a project…it’s a program that gets invested in for the long-term. Those that understand that see the most impactful and meaningful results.” — Kris Duggan, founder of Badgeville

My company, Dealspotr, recently launched a gamified ecommerce app which has quickly developed a thriving online shopping community of 30,000 highly engaged members, many of whom spend hours each day on our platform creating millions of user-generated content assets.

We did it by following a bottoms-up process of understanding our users, their motivations, and designing gamified features that effectively tap into these motivations.

What is gamification design in the first place?

“Gamification is the craft of deriving all the fun and addicting elements found in games and applying them to real-world or productive activities” — Yu Kai Chou, gamification expert

You probably have a UX designer on your team, or at least someone who serves in that capacity. Well, UX = user experience, meaning the UX design process puts the user at the center of the design process.

Gamification takes this one step further and puts human motivation at the center of the design process.

First, identify your business goals and metrics

Next, identify the key user actions that will drive you toward your metrics

Understand your users’ motivations

Design your features

Prototype, test, iterate, repeat