Gamification — CodersRank Case Study
I have recently been learning a lot about gamification in products, the motivational psychology behind gamification, and how it can be used to build user interaction within apps, solutions, and platforms.
When used correctly, gamification can make ‘non-fun’ tasks exciting for users!
I took a gamification course on Udemy by Kamal Kanan that explained various frameworks (HOOKED, SAPS, etc) and how it is important to know, as a Product Manager, that gamification should be used as a means to an end and not as the main product itself.
I worked on the ideation of upgraded badges forCodersRank, a platform made to help developers grow as professionals, share their journey, and find their dream jobs.
The platform already has badges that it awards to its users but has a problem of users not wanting to show off or share their badges, which in turn slowed down the virality of the platform.
So I went about doing research on why the users weren’t keen on sharing these badges, or if they even wanted to earn them. I found that users thought it was too difficult to earn the badges and they were not ‘cool’ to share online.
My solution was in three layers :
- Create a new category of badges to be earned. Through research, I found that the users that thought it was too difficult to earn the badges were junior developers that were quite active on the platform but did not have enough code experience to earn the badges. A new category of badges that were awarded based on interactions and task completions was ideated
- Update the UI of the badges. The truth is the developers that earned the badges didn’t think they were cool enough to be shown off. I created a quick mock (on Canva) using some of the current UI trends in the gaming space. Some developers also thought it was unoriginal to share that they were the ‘Top X in a coding language’ and so I also proposed the use of code names in badges.
- Introduce Progress Bars. Positive reinforcement is quite important to humans, and having a way to track how well a user is doing is a sure way to boost their interest in completing a task. With this knowledge, I ideated the introduction of progress bars, to whet the interest of users.
This case study was quite interesting, and I was able to apply a lot of the gamification concepts I learned. Here’s a link to the folder containing the slides prepared and a summary — Badges Ideation
Kindly let me know what you think in the comments about my ideated solutions!
