Gamification is a concept that can become a powerful tool for designers to build engaging digital products with the user’s goal in mind. But effective and actionable gamification can be achieved mainly by understanding the target audience’s goals, motivations, fears, behavior, and psychology. Designers can tailor the product experience based on the outcomes of the research whilst also keep in mind the recurring users and provide a continued and long-term gamified experience.

1. Human-Centered Design Framework for
Gamification in UX
https://fibonalabs.com/

3. OCTALYSIS FRAMEWORK
The Octalysis Framework is a human-centered design framework designed by
designer Yu-Kai Chou, he has listed 8 core drives that act as the foundation for
effective and actionable Gamification.
These 8 core drives are the main force for human motivation to complete a task
and achieve any goal.
The 8 core drives listed in the Octalysis Framework are,

4. 1. Epic Meaning and Calling
This core drive comes into play where the user believes that they are part of
something bigger than themselves. The completion of a task will lead to a
greater good. For example, when a user/employee takes an online course, they
feel they are learning in order to make a difference for their company in the
long run. It is much bigger than just taking up an online course.

5. 2. Development and Accomplishment
This is an internal motivator or core drive that pushes the user to take on new
challenges, learn new skills, master them and achieve goals. The game
mechanics such as badges, leaderboards, points come in handy here as they
reward the user on their journey of overcoming a challenge and keep the users
motivated throughout their journey.

6. 3. Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback
This drive motivates the user to be part of the creative process, go on their own
unique journey, learn things through trial and error, try various permutations
and combinations and all the while receiving appropriate feedback from the
system regarding their actions.
4. Ownership and Possession
This core drive forms the basis of the motivation that the user owns after

7. Badges do a good job for depicting ownership of an asset on an application.
5. Social Influence and Relatedness
The above-mentioned core drive acts on the emotion that people always seek
connection and approval (from peers, family, social media). This empowers
teamwork and a competitive spirit. Leaderboards, Points and Badges help in
building that competitive spirit among the users on any application.

8. 6. Scarcity and Impatience
People are always driven to have something that they don’t currently own. The
fact that they can’t have it now makes them think about it constantly and
motivates them to get it at the earliest.
7. Unpredictability and Curiosity
This comes from the core drive that people love to explore and enjoy surprises
and new experiences tend to pique our curiosity and thirst for learning.

9. 8. Loss and Avoidance
This drive comes from the fact that people hate losing anything that was earned
by the hard way. So, they are driven to protect such assets at all costs and
build on them.
LEFT BRAIN vs RIGHT BRAIN CORE DRIVES
The core drives such as Development & Accomplishment, Ownership &
Possession, and Scarcity & Impatience invoke the logical side of our brain. The

10. These drives are based on extrinsic motivation.
These are core drives that are based on aspects such as Logic, Calculation
and Ownership.
On the other hand, Core drives such as Empowerment of Creativity &
Feedback, Social Influence & Relatedness, and Unpredictability & Curiosity
core drives work on the emotional side of our brain with the drive being to enjoy
and experience a sense of joy and accomplishment. These drives are based on
intrinsic motivation.

11. These core drives are based on aspects such as Creativity, Self-expression,
and Social aspects.
With the case of the Right-brain core drives, there are no external rewards, and
the emotions evoked by activating these core drives themselves act as the
rewards. Whereas left-brain core drives need external rewards and over time,
users’ motivation may decrease when it comes to the external rewards.
Therefore, it is necessary to build applications that are more Right brain driven
rather than Left brain driven when it comes to the core drives.

12. WHITE HAT vs BLACK HAT GAMIFICATION
White Hat Core drives are drives that act as good or positive motivators
because they bring forward the emotion of mastery and promote learning and
creativity.
● Epic Meaning and Calling
● Development and Accomplishment
● Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback

13. Black Hat Core drives on the other hand are drives that are considered to be
bad or negative motivators because they work on the emotions of not being
able to achieve a goal or not being able to obtain a reward or fear of losing your
rewards.
● Scarcity and Impatience
● Unpredictability and Curiosity
● Loss and Avoidance

14. LEVEL 2 OCTALYSIS
The next most important thing to understand when it comes to Gamification and
the application, in general, is that there is no one universal experience that the
designer can/should design for. A user’s interaction with an application on day
1 is vastly different from their interaction with the same application on day 50.
Hence, at any given time there are users on applications that are in different
phases of the application usage.

15. These phases can be broadly classified into 4 types:
● Discovery(Phase 1): During this phase, the users are new to the
application and curious about the app. They want to know its features and
the value these can provide to them. So, the core drives that come into
play is Unpredictability and Curiosity
● Onboarding(Phase 2): In this phase, the user is motivated by the core
drive of Development & Accomplishment where the goal is to complete the
task on the application and achieve the goal that they set for themselves.

16. ● Scaffolding (Phase 3): This phase is all about the core drive of Social
Influence and Relatedness where the user is motivated by the social
dynamic. Here, the user wants to seek approval and acknowledgment of
peers for the accomplishment of tasks and at the same time, looks forward
to take on the next set of tasks to complete.
● Endgame (Phase 4): Finally, this phase is motivated by the core drive of
Loss and Avoidance where the user wishes to protect the rewards gained
over the course of time.

17. GAMIFIED APPLICATIONS
There are a lot of good examples of gamified digital products in the current
market, that have taken human behaviour into consideration and possibly even
applied the Octalysis framework to their products to build an effective and
actionable gamified experience.
Some of the best-gamified applications across various product domains are
listed below:

18. Duolingo – Language Learning Application
Duolingo is a free language learning application that uses gamification across
the platform to provide an engaging experience to the users.
Users earn badges along their way when they complete courses and compete
with other users from across the world.
The mascot on the application also provides constant motivation to the user on
their journey towards mastering a language

19. Habitica – Habit-Forming Application
Habitica is an application designed to improve users’ productivity in their day-
to-day lives.
Users set their goals on the application and for progress towards their goals,
they are rewarded with badges, points, and internal currency which can be
used to improve the user’s in-game avatar.
They can also compete with other users in challenges that are added to the

20. Nike+ Run Club – Fitness Application
Nike+ Run Club is an application that monitors the user’s fitness levels on a
day-to-day basis. When the users exercise or perform any physical activity, it is
recorded on the application, and badges and rewards are provided upon hitting
every milestone. Users can also compete with users and compare their scores
and run times and improve over a period of time. Their running times and
calories burned are added to a leaderboard which can be shared with other
people through social media and keep their motivation going.

21. CONCLUSION
To conclude, we can say that Gamification is a concept that can become a
powerful tool for designers to build engaging digital products with the user’s
goal in mind.
But effective and actionable gamification can be achieved mainly by
understanding the target audience’s goals, motivations, fears, behavior, and
psychology. Designers can tailor the product experience based on the
outcomes of the research whilst also keep in mind the recurring users and
provide a continued and long-term gamified experience.

22. THANK YOU