Trust on the Internet: a Solution Through Gamification
Nowadays, everything seems to revolve around “engagement,” whether it’s targeting customers or employees. Engaging customers implies providing an environment to which they’ll happily return on their own accord. Whether that environment is established via a social media platform, an e-commerce website, or an on-site experience (e.g. a music festival) isn’t important. What matters is that value contributed up front results in brand awareness and loyalty in the long run.
While engaging customers requires emphasis on aftereffects, employee engagement focuses on getting your team motivated and inspiring dedication before a product, page, or event launches. This can be accomplished by pushing them to see the bigger pictures—the ‘epic story’ behind their everyday tasks. The effort to inspire should include every last employee. Consider an anecdote for inspiration: a janitor at NASA who, when asked by John F. Kennedy what he was doing at the agency, responded, “I’m helping to put a man on the Moon.”
Today, words like “employee experience” and “employee satisfaction” are well-established vocabulary within management teams, where gamification tactics are already being employed to ensure team members feel included, engaged, and committed to a successful outcome.
Pretty much any area of life can be “gamified,” from nutrition to language learning, always with the intent of engaging users.
Gamification can be defined as the use of mechanics usually found in games (such as scoring and, more broadly, competition) to support engagement in non-game situations. The point is to reward “players”—in this case, employees—for good work and to inspire accomplishment. “Prizes” includes trophies and badges, which can be used to incite playful competition between teammates and/or earn a real-life reward.
Almost all industries can be gamified, from nutrition to language learning and employee hiring, always with the intent of increased engagement, either from consumers or employees.
A History of Gamification
Past
Back then, [gamification] was merely a way to gauge the trustworthiness of the answers.
The use of game mechanics outside of game environments can be traced back to the early Internet, when differentiating between early and experienced users was necessary in order to measure the reliability of responses. At that point, gamification was employed on forums, for example, as a way to gauge the trustworthiness of users and their questions/answers posted. It came in the form of elements like titles, which would be earned for posting and/or answering questions. These titles would be displayed beside profile pictures and account pages in order to prove a reliable reputation to peers. In many cases, this proved attractive enough to retain users, therefore succeeding in the desired “user engagement” pillar.
As users began dedicating more and more time to curating their profiles and earning a valuable online reputation, they were reluctant to engage in dishonest action that may result in a worsened reputation—even a small degree of “bad behavior” could lose you a title.
As users began dedicating more and more time to curating their profiles and earning a valuable online reputation, they were reluctant to engage in dishonest action that may result in a worsened reputation—even a small degree of “bad behavior” could lose you a title. The hope was that this self-imposed regulation would result in a kind of built-in trust that functioned as the foundation for many forums.
Unfortunately, one particular issue made this difficult. That is, any user feeling the urge to troll could do so easily, either by creating a new account on the same forum or relocating to another community—all without running the risk of a worsened reputation attached to his/her primary account, where the built-up reputation would remain unchanged.
Present
The main issue with our current system, though, is the lack of permeability between all those platforms, meaning that you can’t transfer your rewards (titles, badges, points, trophies, etc.) from one to the other.
Nowadays, gamification is the word on everyone’s lips: from intricate game mechanics to simple reward systems, it is being used with increased frequency, both within applications and across the rest of the web. While profile creation may appear more restrictive—requiring increased information and employing mechanisms to block multiple profiles created by a single user—it remains too easy to open fraudulent secondary accounts and use them to spark controversy or spread damaging dialogue.
The primary issue with the current system—beyond profile creation—is the lack of platform interconnectedness. This means that you can’t transfer rewards (titles, badges, points, trophies, etc.) from one to the other and will have to start fresh each time you register for use. This likely hinders users from creating profiles on potentially superior platforms and/or those with larger user bases, as they’re hesitant to give up a hard-earned reputation.
Future
This issue—of interconnectedness—is that which should be emphasized in gamification mechanics moving forward. Badges built should be fit for multiple platforms and earned ‘points’ should be transferred automatically from one profile to another upon account creation. “Meta points” may be another option—that is, points not linked to a specific website, but rather to a user’s profile, which is transferrable across platforms.
One emerging technology that may improve user experience in gamified circumstances is the one we’re integrating at Hey: blockchain. Blockchain is a technology based on decentralization of information, which allows for the creation of what’s called a “meta network.” Meta networks allow for transferability across platforms, meaning that user profiles would be operable from one platform to the next, transplanting badges, tokens, and other earned titles wherever users are active across the Internet. This means that, if you build a profile at Hey, there’ll be no more new introductions. Your reputation—including badges, trophies, and unlockables—will follow you from community to community.
The Hey team chose to work with blockchain’s emerging technology based on its alignment with our two principle ideals: transparency and accessibility—anytime, anywhere.
Gamification as a Possible Solution for Online Trust
At Hey, we see gamification mechanics as a potential safeguard to profile duplication and a technique to building online trust. This is based on our experience working with online gamers. We began working with online gamers via behavioral observation and quickly realized that MMORPGs (or massively multiplayer online role-playing games) tend to incite good behavior from players. This is, again, based on a fear of losing bounty, armor, and other rewards linked to character success.
In order to encourage similar positive behavior on Hey’s platform, the team needed to figure out how to ensure that users’ profile earnings (rewards, levels, unlockables, …) were valuable enough that users might be afraid to lose them—not only on one platform or community, but rather across the entire Internet.
The system being developed at Hey aims to increase user identification. That is, to build a user profile association so strong that the thought of restarting on another platform would be deeply troublesome. The best part: they’ll never have to. The purpose of creating a profile via Hey and using the platform is that the profile is accessible on all others, working as an additional layer on forums and websites, maintaining a reputation on all platforms.
Gamification is deeply engrained in the system. Hey users will assist the community by curating content and answering questions, which will earn them Karma points. These points will be converted into tradable HEY tokens each day and can be traded on exchange platforms. Hey’s platform also includes earnings via levels and a Karma multiplier, among other gamifying mechanisms.
Hey’s aim is to take gamification to the next level—for user engagement, sure, but also for increased trust via transferability. We’re on the road to success and hope you’ll join us. It’ll be your last ‘new profile,’ we promise.
Head over to our manifesto to learn more!
