If there ever was a potion to cure many ills and provide a fresh boost to user engagement, gamification is its name. Looking to captivate and hold on to a larger audience? Feeling keen on increasing your profits? Time to level up for that. — Simply put, gamification refers to applying design characteristics and game mechanics to products and everyday situations to offer a more satisfying user experience. The unique trait of these features is that they promote a very genuine motivation, since they build in an element of play.

Most good stories leave you with a moral takeaway or a lesson learnt in some shape or form. In a similar fashion, brand narratives tend to incorporate values to represent what a company stands for, much like the heroes (or wise guides) of fairytales we read as children. — Previously I whipped out a series of research and statistical findings to make my case for the necessity of storytelling in a business context. If you are still unsure if content is king or queen, you can read my evidence-based sales pitch here:

Rather than solely focusing on product characteristics and features, an authentic and creative narrative can convey brand values and connect with the target audience in a more strategic way. — We are all the heroes of our own stories, and building a narrative around our experiences courses in our veins. Binging on stories is one of our most common and universal tendencies, as it helps us better understand the world and ourselves, apart from offering us an invitation to dive…

As we try to live in more ecologically conscious ways, the digital sphere becomes increasingly interwoven with our physical surroundings. Sustainable tech is still but a seed sown, and not quite nurtured to scale with our environmental footprint. — You may have heard of permaculture as a guiding principle and approach for creating sustainable design systems. Its grounded ethos emphasises working with nature, rather than against it, as is unfortunately more common these days. Though we keep leaving a damaging environmental footprint in the wake of our growing needs…

Conflict, in its many shades and forms, is an inevitable and necessary ingredient of any team. If everyone is on the same page, it can be challenging to push boundaries and explore new ideas. Meanwhile, different opinions clashing can lead to fruitless friction over growth. — Productivity and efficiency are the poster children of success in a traditional business context, and the notion of conflict seems like a dreaded side-effect of their bickering. There is a tendency to assume that disagreements only serve as a challenge that hinders the ideally smooth flow of teamwork. But what…

You don’t have to venture too far to unearth evergreen advice and ideas from art history. Techniques and styles aside, sometimes it is the overall picture of a painter’s growth that leaves the strongest impression. — I must confess that I have a particular relationship with Picasso’s work. See, I don’t exactly like his later, trademark cubist art — but I very much respect his processes and the backstory of how he became etched into history. Even if you are in a similar place of not…

According to one study, 98% of people don’t read T&Cs and would (accidentally) give up their firstborn child just to use an app. But whose fault is it, really? — It should come as no surprise that so many of us have become jaded and exhausted by the same wall of text urging us to adhere to rules and conditions which seem so daunting that choosing “Accept” has become our default response. The wordy General Conditions in front of us…

Implementing new habits and practices can be hard, and sometimes we need some extra boost for motivation. If you are struggling to stick to writing alt text descriptions, perhaps this quick tech-heavy overview can help by introducing you to its multiple uses. — Earlier this week I covered the accessibility of alt text, and I was itching to include how AI and SEO interact with it. In the end, I removed those parts to save for later, because I wanted the focus to be on accessibility rather than best marketing practices and current…

It is mighty hard to implement better accessibility practices, when the current guidelines are vague and seemingly more focused on virtue-signalling. Here are some research takeaways that are paving the way towards a more coherent view. — Earlier I had a closer look at what Dark Mode entails in terms of accessibility, and this time I am covering some recent studies stressing another accessibility angle. One, which is challenging for a whole different reason: a lack of clear guidelines.