What can game design teach us about behavior change?

We are born to play.

It’s wired into our sense of self from the day we are born. How many times can you recall spending hours in your neighborhood playing capture the flag or sitting in front of your television engaged in endless rounds of Mario Kart.

Games are inherently engaging using core tenants of behavioral science to drive user engagement.

Game design is a goldmine for new and creative ways to leverage behavioral nudges into the work we do. The question of where to start can be overwhelming.

The Power of the Octalysis Framework

Octalysis gamification framework was developed by Yu-kai Chou.

He explains, "[Gamification] is a design process that optimizes for human motivation in a system, as opposed to pure efficiency."

I recommend checking out Yu-kai's TED talk here for a more thorough explanation.

Fort those familiar with behavioral science, many of these core tenants tie back to various behavioral science theories.

Epic Meaning and Calling

If I covered every section of this framework this email would turn into a book and well…. I’ve already written a book. Today we’ll focus on on one key concept - Epic Meaning and Calling.

We often ask ourselves, what is our calling?

Are we contributing to something larger than just ourselves? Do we feel we are on this earth to fulfill a higher calling?

When a player believes they are doing something greater than their self or were 'chosen' for a specific task that no one else can do, action quickly follows.

In gaming, this often manifests itself in a pretty straightforward way (e.g. the world is ending and only YOU can save it). Outside of gaming, this drive may be less obvious, but it's certainly no less important.

Understanding that a sense of meaning and/or calling triggers certain behaviors is key. When you're driven by a cause that you believe to be your destiny it's powerful. Provide your users with a sense of ownership and their task at hand is bigger than just them.

The application of this concept

PainSquad set out to help encourage children who had been diagnosed with cancer track their pain levels. One problem, it’s very difficult to get any of us to report daily on an app pain levels, let alone kids.

How can you get kids to consistently report their levels of pain?

Make them the hero of their own story.

Pain Squad is a multidimensional smartphone-based pain assessment app for children and adolescents with cancer 8 to 18 years of age.

In this detective style game, the app challenges kids to enlist in the Pain Squad™ and search for clues to put pain where it belongs … behind bars.

By making these kids the hero of the storyline they are no longer just reporting their pain levels, they are on a detective mission to uncover clues and put the pain behind bars.

Same ends, different means.

Interested in learning more?

If you enjoyed this and want to learn more you can grab a free copy of my book Decoding the Why - How Behavioral Science is Driving the Next Generation of Product Design with promo code: Newsletter.

Have a great weekend,

Nate