Weekly Recap – gamification around the web

This week in gamification: a framework for gamifying user interface and user experience, Keas comes out of stealth to reveal a game that keeps you healthy, an overview of how gamification is influencing how we watch TV, and to connect them all, Econsultancy asks the question, “Is everything a game?”

A Gamification Framework for Interaction Designers

UX Magazine’s Audrey Crane put out a piece on her understanding of gamification from a UX design perspective, “A Gamification Framework for Interaction Designers“. Concentrating on website design, Audrey’s article sketches an outline that can help understand how to implement gamification, ranging from cosmetic elements of games to fully integrated features that can drive a website. The model has four categories: Cosmetic: adding game-like visual elements or copy (usually visual design or copy driven); Accessory: wedging in easy-to-add-on game elements, such as badges or adjacent products (usually market driven); Integrated: more subtle, deeply integrated elements like % complete (usually interaction design driven); Basis: making the entire offering a game (usually product driven). Audrey adds, “I think that most of the critics [of gamification] fail to take into account the wide range of execution that’s possible. Gamification can be applied as a superficial afterthought or as a useful or even fundamental integration.”

Adam Bosworth Unveils Keas, The Game That Keeps You Healthy
TechCrunch interviews Adam Bosworth, who previously launched Google Health, about his new start-up Keas. Keas aims to make people more healthy with both consumer and business facing offerings that encourage individuals to get fit with the power of play. Unlike Google Health, Keas is inherently social and allows players to support friends and family in their quest to stay healthy.

The Gamification of Social TV
Although released in May, Gary Hayes, producer, director, and creator of the blog PersonalizeMedia, wrote up a comprehensive look into the gamification of TV entertainment. Growing out of Social TV, which according to Gary has been around since 2002, the gamification of TV has a few steps of difficulty and engagement. The first is providing social elements around the guide listings that everyone must comb through before finding anything interesting to watch. Second, broadcasters can synch information on second screen, a phone or tablet, to the action onscreen, allowing for interactive features and information. Third, including the audience directly in the programming, loosely done through voting/polling. To jump a few levels, Gary finally describes how viewers participate at the level where they are the show. Check out the article for an in-depth look.

Gamification: Is everything a game?
Econsultancy blogger Matt Rhodes argues that gamification is not about fun. Instead it is about engagement and aligning the motivations of a user to that of a broader system. He is mainly discussing the use of gamification and using social networking in marketing (Econsultancy is a marketing blog after all). Matt concludes, “gamification is nothing new. It is not about making things more fun or making them into a game. It is about motivations, reward and aligning ambitions between the business and the people they want to engage.” Structuring gamification in terms of engagement has been used to make the movement more palatable to established marketing professionals, but Matt largely ignores many of the roots of gamification: playing games as well as positive psychology. Games for business may not sound appealing to a CEO, but do not count out the power play for motivating individuals. Room for debate.