Designing for the Tetris effect
I recently jumped into the hypnotic world of Tetris Effects. Having not played the addictive classic in about 25 years, I was blown away by this latest installment. I would describe it as a virtually induced spiritual retreat.
I have devoted countless evenings to manipulating these virtual blocks (also known as Tetrominoes), and am now finding myself moving imaginary, abstract shapes in my sleep. This is known as the Tetris Effect.
Studies have shown, that playing Tetris puts you into a flow-like state, where the rest of the world can drift away. I started to consider the ease with which you fall into this state and how consistency and feedback are the key design principles in aiding this process.
As a player, you are reassuringly aware that there are only seven potential shapes in play, and you are given instant feedback on your in-game choices. You quickly develop muscle memory and reacting to these shapes becomes effortless.
It’s all about principles
As designers, we need to consider how our users interact with the products we create and ensure that they can use them with the same ease as a game of Tetris. If our end goal is to design habit-forming products, then getting the fundamentals like consistency and feedback right is crucial.
When we expect the user to click a trendy, but grey and inactive looking button, it’s the equivalent of presenting a Tetris player with a Tetromino that takes the unexpected form of a long zig-zagging snake when it’s meant to be an L. The unexpected behaviour would create anxiety and instantly detach gamers from their flow-like state. The same can happen in our products.
Jakob’s Law advises that we should “Design for patterns for which users are accustomed.” The law is being followed to the letter in Tetris and we should all be striving to have Tetris-like Design Systems.
The feedback we provide our users with is just as important. Whilst reactionary changes in music, celebratory fireworks, and excited blue whales may not be possible or appropriate in our products, delighting users with timely feedback for their actions is.
Achievement unlocked
The design principles above are critical, but the thing that really keeps players coming back is the sense of achievement they get when they manage to clear a tall wall of Tetrominoes and avert the crisis of Game Over! It’s arguably the biggest reason for high player engagement.
That brings me to my final parallel with the world of Product Design and that’s the concept of The Hook Model. Developed by Nir Eyal, the author of one of my favourite books Hooked.
The four phases of this methodology are Trigger, Action, Variable Reward, and Investment. In our game of Tetris, the action of decreasing the size of our wall through strategically placed Tetrominoes and hitting a new high score leads to a type of reward known as Reward of the Self. This is when the player gains a feeling of mastery and personal satisfaction.
The Reward of the Self trick can be seen in leading software products too. A prime example is Rosetta Stone, whose app ensures users are hooked through the introduction of their Challenges and Badges. As your language skills increase, so do your levels of engagement with the service. As a user of the platform myself, I am certainly cognoscente to the fact that I am being hooked in.
