Research Extracts
The following extracts are from Pauline Freegard’s MBA research project covering gamification of business systems, user adoption and lawyer psychology in the context of systems and design. This work is the copyright of Pauline Freegard MBA and may not be reproduced without permission.
Gamification
There has been strong commercial and academic interest in this relatively new concept since approximately 2010. Many of the articles and academic papers regarding the ‘gamification’ of systems have been written in the last few years.
Gamification is the application of game-like design elements to IT applications to drive and encourage user behaviours.
The aim of gamification is to support and motivate the users to perform tasks determined by the software (Deterding et al., 2011 and Huotari & Hamari, 2012). By tapping into intrinsic theories of motivation the game elements seek to engage the user more fully with the tasks to make them more interesting and fun. Hamari (2015) notes that “this notion regarding the positive association between intrinsic motivation and improvement in performance is a core reason why gamification is expected to be efficient”. See Introduction, section 1.5 for examples of gamification projects and results.
Hedonic vs. Utilitarian software applications
Traditionally there is a natural division between applications and software for leisure and those systems used in a business setting. These fun applications such as games or social media applications, for example, are known as hedonic as the motivation to use them is primarily based on fun and enjoyment. The other type of software product is used in a business setting, that includes legal case management. These utilitarian applications are designed to increase productivity and the concept of being’ fun to use’ has not been a factor in software design until very recently. Gamification seeks to bridge the gap between ‘fun’ applications and business systems, thus it can be argued that they represent an evolution of Utilitarian systems or a new class of application (Hamari, 2015).
Gamification design elements
There are a variety of game-like mechanisms that have been applied to systems. They range from simple points systems, rewards, leader boards, social elements to pure gameplay. (Mlinar and Weppel, 2015). Different game mechanics have been found to appeal to different employee roles (Axonify, 2015 as cited by Mlinar and Weppel, 2015). Mlinar and Weppel go on to discuss the importance of utilising core elements of gaming design as Story, Score and Strategy in learning systems specifically.
Robson et al (2015a) postulate based upon that there are four categories of ‘player’ found in case studies. Their work is based on the original work of Bartle (1996) examining the first online game environments called multi-user domains/dimensions (MUD’s). Robson et al (2015a) identify these as Scholars, Slayers, Socialites and Strivers. The defining characteristics of each are described in figure 1.
Figure 1. Typology of players in a gamified experience 9Robson et al, 2015a)
Deterding et al. (2011) as cited in Bedard (2015) also concur that the best gamification projects tap into intrinsic motivations that combine:
- Meaning – also defined as Purpose (Pink, 2009) and Story (Mlinar & Weppel, 2015)
- A path to Mastery – by tracking Scores (Mlinar and Weppel, 2015) game elements may offer a path to mastering a task or a set of tasks.
- Autonomy – self-directed Strategy (Mlinar and Weppel, 2015) in how to execute the task
The fourth element of best practice suggested by Mlinar and Weppel is Support. It is logical that IT systems become less engaging and frustrating if the user is not supported in their experience. It is backed up by another research field into the user acceptance of technology. Ease of use is vital to user acceptance and adoption of technology (Hamari, 2015).
Game mechanics preference by job role
Mlinar and Weppel (2015) cite results from 250,000 learners in a study by Axonify in 2015 that found employees with different job roles do prefer different elements of an e-learning gamified process, see figure 2:
Figure 2. Popularity by role game mechanics, Axonify (2015) cited in Mlinar & Weppel (2015)
The most striking difference in the results is in the knowledge worker category with game play as a very high preference (71%) and a low preference for Rewards (15%) when compared to the other role types. Whilst not a direct comparison with Administrator / Lawyer roles in a legal team it does illustrate that different job roles can have a preference for different game mechanics.
Who’s playing? – Gaming demographics
Game user demographics are surprisingly diverse and it is not always the teenage boy playing electronic games at all (electronic games defined as mobile, computer based or video games on a dedicated console). For the purposes of this study no distinction was made between game platform types. However, it is acknowledged that mobile-based games are more easily played with others and often accessed through social media.
Women in their 30’s and 40’s are found to be the largest group playing the most popular mobile games. A survey conducted in 2015 found that the most frequent female players were on average 43 years old, males were 35 years old on average (Entertainment Software Association, 2015).
The same report says that Women also make up the largest single group playing video or computer based games (33%) as opposed to teenage boys under 18 years old (15%).
Research by Information Solutions Group (2011) found that 41% of UK and US players played a social on-line game in the last 3 months before the survey and play at least 15 mins a week. Their updated research survey in 2013, focused on the US only, reveals that 47% of US consumers have played a mobile game in the month before the survey.