Use Psychology To Gamify Apps

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Gamification makes a website or app more fun and motivate users to use it. Employ elements from successful games and behaviorism.

Gamify

Employ known user habits

Gamified

Ungamified

How users click, swipe, and access services resembles a game.

1

Completely unknown way to interact with the app.

Add humanness

Gamified

Ungamified

Use human faces and anthropomorphize features, use avatars.

2

It's bland.

Give rewards and sensations

Gamified

Ungamified

Give points, badges, unlockable content, status symbols, progress ranks, etc., to the user. Use colors and designs to make things "shiny".

3

No points, no appreciation and excitement for doing a task.

Add randomness and luck

Gamified

Ungamified

Users are motivated with random and unpredictable rewards, because they feel lucky and try to maximize them.

4

Rewards are given very predictably so users only use the app for rewards and hit back.

Tell a story

Gamified

Ungamified

Think of your user as a main character in a game who progresses through your services.

5

The app lacks a central theme.

More on psychology of App design

Gamification

App's functions

User experience