Tips from a Design Thinking Perspective, Part 1 See - Understand it: This is the first of three journeys to travel through a design process. With See - Understand it, we will explore possibilities in your inspiration, research and idea creation process. I am working on a video series which will support this content, so stay tuned!

1. A practical Guide to Gamification
Tips from a Design Thinking Perspective, Part 1
See - Understand it
Octalysis Group, 08.02.2017Sabrina Bruehwiler

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Inspiration & Research
1. Create a growth mindset
2. Define Objectives
3. Brand Analysis
4. Marketplace Analysis
5. SWOT and PESTEL Analysis
Idea Creation
6. Brainstorming
7. User Stories and Flows
8. Analyze your thoughts
9. Evaluate your concepts

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1. Create a growth mindset
To generate new and innovative ideas, we need to step out of our confort zone.
Doing the same thing over and over again, will not make you progress and you might end up with bad habits and new technology and trends will make you fall behind.
Having an agile mindset will not only help you making decisions faster and better, it will also make it possible for you to adapt and change things if needed.

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2. Define Objectives
What is is what you want to reach?
Defining an Objective will change the way you look at your design and how you work with other people during the process.
Use the SMART Methodology to help you deciding on an objective:

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6 important questions to ask while defining your objectives are:
What is?
What’s the current situation?
What matters?
What is important to us?
What’s next?
What do we want to achieve or improve and why?
Who is involved with it?
Do you need help from someone else?
When does this need to be ready?
An important factor that needs to be considered when starting a design. It will define what design will be possible and what restrictions you need to set yourself.
Restrictions don’t mean less creative freedom but will make you look at a situation in a different angle.
What is the end medium?
- If you are going to design something for a website you will need to look at best practices and what programming languages the development team will use.
- If you design for a museum you might need to consider how they look at the design, maybe it needs to be visible from far away? Is there sound involved?
- If you design something for print you need to consider time for test-printing, printing and how many people will be involved. Also don’t underestimate the time taken up by getting the right col-
ours, as they will look different on your print than on your screen.
2 . Define Objectives

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The marketplace mentioned beforehand and the brand you’re working for will define what direction your design needs to take.
It will for example shape if you can use bright, vivid colours or if you need to choose a more settled set of colours.
It will decide what the tone of the copy needs to be and how creative a narrative can be applied.
Ask the 8 What questions:
What is my Brand/Product about?
MTV Kids Online is a gamified Music Video Streaming Site for Kids between the age of 7 and 10. It works as a Subbrand for MTV, next to MTV Online which is targeting Adults (20-30).
What is my Brand/Product Positioning - Statement?
MTV Kids Online brings back the Music to the consumer, the kids - who want to explore the world of Music Videos in a playful way. They are between the age of 7 and 10, when they
first get in touch with music and will get a great tool to share with their friends and gain insights about what they like and dislike. They will de­velop a broad knowledge about the Music
industry, the professions and the latest trends. They can also develop their fine motor skills by using the interfaces and interactions.
What is my Brand/Product Promise?
We are the fastest Provider in the UK
What is the Brands Personality?
quirky, creative, open or serious, clean, simple
What are the Core Values?
- Gameful Learning - learning while playing
- Social Exchange
- Musical Education
What is their Vision and Mission?
“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
What is the Brand/Product Mantra?
Sharing – Happiness - Tasty (Coke)
What Creative Guidelines need to be followed?
Fonts, Colours, Imagery, Logo, Copy, Style, Motion, Components, etc
eg. Google Material Design has a great library for their guidelines: https://material.io/guidelines/material-design/introduction.html
3. Brand Analysis

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Here an example of a brand that has done all of this perfectly (https://vimeo.com/96160968)
eg. List of 36 Brand Guidelines: https://www.contentharmony.com/blog/great-brand-guidelines/
3. Brand Analysis

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4. Marketplace Analysis
Marketplace
As more as you know about your users, as more you can adjust your design towards them.
For example Old people will need bigger fonts while younger people appreciate a modern, clean design.
Define patterns and create Personas either based on target or data.
Online Tool http://userforge.com/
Important indicators are:
- Age
- Occupation
- Status
- Location
- Player Type
- Archetype
- Personality
- Motivations
- Goals
- Frustrations
- Biography
- Technology
- Favorite Brands and Products

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5. SWOT and PESTEL Analysis
A SWOT Analysis can help identifying strenghts and weaknesses of a company and looks at opportunities and threats.
The analysis helps to identify potential problens with design and how to avoid them.
It also clearifies what the design should focus on and and it will look at where to come up with innovation.
Online Tool https://realtimeboard.com/examples/swot-analysis/

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Strengths and Weaknesses:
Physical Resources: Location, Assets (Money, Buildings, Equipment), Logistics
Human Resources: Client/Userbase, Staff, Contacts/Networks
Experience: Experience, Expertise, Research, Reputation
Opportunities and Threats:
Trends: Industry, Technology, Market
Industry: Events
Finances: Support, Founding
Politics: Legislations, Leadership, Government
Economy: Growth, Developing Countries, Stability, Local and Global Outreach
Social: Culture and Background, Demographics, Psychographics
Technology: Innovation, Development, Connections, Energy, Resources
Environment: Transport, Logistics, Ecological Influences, Natural Resources
Legal: Law, Tax
Example 1: Your Client has huge opportunities to be an innovative leader in their field - which leads to a design that needs to be up to date, using the newest technology, research and trends.
Example 2: Your Client is based in a third world country, technology is on a low level, this might impact your teamwork and communication possibilities during the process. People might still use
old phones and technology that isn’t used in first world countries anymore, according to that, the design needs to be able to run on these devices.
5. SWOT and PESTEL Analysis

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6. Brainstorming
- Mind-mapping

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- Sketching
6. Brainstorming

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- Storyboarding
Problem: No Toilet Paper
Solution: Kleenex
Online Tool: https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboard-creator
6. Brainstorming

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- Diary
- Brain Dumping
Write down whatever comes to your mind for 10-20 min
- Brain Writing
Get a group of people and have them write their ideas on their own sheet of paper. After about 2 minutes, rotate the sheets to different people and continue based on their ideas.
Online Tool: (http://635.tecmark.co.uk/)
- Brain Drawing
same thing with writing but with drawing (popular example: draw and fold over)
6. Brainstorming

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- Role Play
Start with a problem and play it out (https://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/RolePlaying.htm)
Why not trying out some LARP (Live Action Role Play), it will help you with your growth mindset and inspires your imagination
eg: Role Playing in the Classroom, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bySCaKZssc
eg: Live Action Role Play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9umm0m08bM
- Challenge your Ideas
Why is this the best idea, can it also be x, what if it is the opposite (Reverse Thinking)?
- What if resources wouldn’t be an issue, what would you do?
- Meditation
- Dream actively, train your brain :
1. I want to remember
2. I have a specific objective I want to dream of
3. Write a Dream Diary
4. Talk to someone or yourself about your dream
More Online Tools:
https://www.groupmap.com/
http://groupzap.com/
https://mural.co/
https://stormz.me/
6. Brainstorming

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- Collage offline or online (Pinterest)
- Post-its (Online Tool: https://stormboard.com)
- Moodboards (Online Tool: http://www.gomoodboard.com/)
- Play games, watch movies, read books
- Travel and learn from new cultures and environments
- Google Track:
Search for a specific thing and look what google is coming up with
Important:
1. Don’t throw any ideas away.
2. Keep collecting them and come back to them if it is
the right time for it.
3. Sometimes an idea doesn’t suit in a particular situation
but a few months later it could be the solution for a problem.
6. Brainstorming

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7. User Stories and Flows
With Stories and Flows, you will be able to identify potentials drop-offs and motivational pitfalls.
This will help you identify where to add Feedback Mechanics, where the Win States are and what Game Techniques could be used and where.
8 important questions to ask to create User Stories and Flows are:
What is the Goal?
What do you want the user to be doing to reach that goal?
How do you want them to be doing this?
What are desired actions that lead to Win States?
What similar processes are they familiar with?
Why would they do this?
What if...questions?
What’s next?
Octalysis:
It can be used to visually represent the process the user goes through during:
- Strategy Dashboard
- Battleplan
- Wireframing (it can be used if some of the frames are interconnected)
Create flows based on Player Types to indicate where the player might go off.
eg. https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/creating-perfect-user-flows-for-smooth-ux/
eg. https://www.newfangled.com/how-to-tell-the-users-story/
User Story

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User Flows
7 User Stories and Flows

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User Flows combined with wireframes
7 User Stories and Flows
Helpful Tools:
- Pen & Paper
- Creately
- Gliffy
- Omnigraffle
- UX Pin
- Balsamic
- Sketch

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8. Analyse your thoughts
Analysing your thoughts throughout the process will help you understand the motivation of the user and will open you for new ideas and innovation.
Sometimes it helps using some of the already mentioned Brainstorming techniques to open up and stay agile during the process.
Review Flows and Research and analyse the following:
- Patterns
analysing Patterns in the User Behaviour will help finding the right Feedback Mechanics, Win States and Incentives
- Pain-points
analysing Pain-points will help finding the right Game Technique and Incentives which help leading towards a desired action
- Win-States
analysing Win-States will help finding the right places for desired actions
- Trigger Points (Feedback Mechanics)
analysing trigger points will help giving the user a sense of progression, the user should never be lost.
- Core Drives
are we using the right core drives, how does it make the user feel?
- Game Techniques
do we solve the problem and reach the business objective or are they just decoration? If not, ask yourself why you want to use them.
- Research
are we in line with the guidelines we identified during the research?
Octalysis:
The awareness should be there throughout the whole process to stay agile and to be able to make efficient decisions

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9. Evaluate your concepts
Make a list with features and look at possible options and ideas
Evaluate ideas and choose based on cost, effort and impact
Identify Discovery, Onboarding, Scaffolding and End Game and how the user moves through these stages
Octalysis:
- PE Feature List
- Battleplan