Dec 05 2011
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Gamification, Web

The Gamification of SIME

Orginially posted on the official SIME blog

SIME is a Swedish Conference on web, tech and startups. Where great speakers entertain for two days and investors and entrepreneurs mingle over coffee and champagne.

SIME 2011 was a flurry of great speaker on a wide area of subjects. While the set theme for SIME was “Passion Wins” another theme running through the conference was going mobile. Gamification was subtly introduced to the SIME audience in a panel on Gamification and marketing. Possibly to set the stage for a larger presence next year.

But what exactly is Gamification and how does it tie in with SIME 2011?
Gamification is the process of using game mechanics in non-game products and services. I am not talking about  3D characters or scoring points here however. Games have matured in relative obscurity thought the years to become one of the worlds largest entertainment forms, aimed mostly at adults. The foundations ofwhat makes a good game are similar and equally complex as what makes a great brand. The psychology or rewards have been used in training and products over the years, but only games have really delved deep and explored the territory. Pacing and storytelling in a product where there is no story is also only really explored in the games industry. Science and design based on concepts like these are migrating from games into “normal” products.

This is Gamification. And oddly, ties in excellently to SIMEs central theme.

The Passion of Gamification
Passion Wins. That theme was presented by Ola in his welcoming speech and it was central to almost all the talks at SIME. From presentations from promising startups, among them iZettle - the mobile payment solution, to using brain scans for better marketing there was not a presenter on stage that lacked passion. But how do we reach passion in our users or customers? While every panel spoke of the importance to engage users and inspire passion there was only one that talked about how thats done.

Panel on Gamificiation
A panel consisting of Elísabet Grétarsdóttir, Eve Online, Johan Sjöberg, founder Starstable, and Robin Teigland, Stockholm School of Economics, joined Ola on stage to discuss the most popular buzzword of the day.

The panel wasn’t that impressed with the term Gamification for starters. Elisabet described it as working with motivation in marketing to engage the audience, hopefully getting them to participate. Johan joined in saying that the term might be a misnomer, that the term Playification might be more appropriate. Since the focus is on engagement but not at all games.

“we are playful creatures” - Elísabet Grétarsdóttir, SIME 2011

The panel was in agreement that playfulness was important for humans, adding fun to anything should be possible. The panel highlighted experiments with gamification in education and Elisabet even made a pitch to add creative interaction in the fashion industry.

If we are playful creatures, play should be a great way to engage our users. Right?

Going mobile with gamification
As I mentioned earlier another trend runnings through the entire conference was going mobile. Google spoke of being a mobile first company, Ericsson spoke about communicating in a world where every device is interconnected. But what does this have to do with gamification?

Throughout SIME we heard speakers talk about new paradigms and the web/app divide. Essentially mobile web is taking over and has a different set or boundaries than the desktop web. So how to we make sure our mobile interfaces are good enough and engaging users? You know where I’m going with this aren’t you?

Mobile interfaces is a perfect place to start adding the fun.

Summing up gamification at SIME 2011
The passion at SIME was amazing. The energy was great. The game we played at the conference, bad. Basically we’re all looking into how to engage and interact with people through digital mediums. The only industry that has really done it is the games industry. Moving their knowledge to the rest of the web is gamification. Elisabet doesn’t think it’s through external motivation. Ola thinks it might have something to do with horses.

The only thing we know is: however it’s done, it’s going mobile.

 

Jesper Bylund is a Game Designer / Interaction Designer who blogs about Gamification on Adding the Fun.com

UPDATE:
Added a short explanation of what SIME is, thanks to @kenneth_aa for making me realize it was needed.

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Nov 30 2011
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UX

Path 2.0 UX review

Path was a weird app when it launched about a year ago. It was a photo sharing app with checkins, directly competing with Instagram and Foursquare but without the simplicity. It also had the really weird USP that you could “only share with 50 of your closest friends!”… Now, most people don’t have more close friends than that. Hell, most people don’t come close to that. But the early adopter crowd that usually takes these new apps for a spin were appalled. But Path was beautiful.

Path 1.0

It didn’t work.

But Path is back! Path 2.0 is better, faster, turbo, everything you could possibly want. But is it good enough?

Path first impressions

Path is incredibly beautiful. No other mobile experience comes close. Seriously, it’s not just pretty graphics, all the animations and interactions, the structure of information, the loading bars and even the damned typing experience is just plain better than in other apps. It’s amazing.

Path 2.0

So what is Path?

Path is a digital diary for your life. Everyone on Path has a feed. And at any time you can add stuff to your own: where you are, a piture, who you’re with, music you’re listening to or when you go to sleep.

Using Path

Is lonely. Sure it launched today but that’s not the main issue. Path is clearly going for the same feature set as Facebook Timeline (which is tied up in court and has yet to launch) but there’s no way you’ll get all your friends to come over. I’m an early adopter. I talk to a lot of other early adopters. And I’m still lonely on Path.

Still, it’s an amazing experience. Enough to make me want to use it. Maybe that’s enought? I’ll update in a few days and let you know.

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Nov 29 2011
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Design, Marketing, Mobile

Nokia N9 slogan – Just Swipe, dumbass!

Nokia N9 marketing

All screen
No home button
Just swipe
Nokia N9
No way to know how to use it without reading a manual or being taught how
Just swipe, DUMBASS!

Nokia must really love being different. Or at least love patenting interaction models, so they can differentiate from iPhone.

To bad different isn’t the same as good.

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Nov 24 2011
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Design, Developers, UX, Web

Twitter is the Twitter-killer

Twitter, the micro blogging service, has taken the world by storm. While there are only a few hundred million users compared to Facebook’s massive near Billion, the service has become the place to share real time updates and is often used to gauge peoples reactions by news and analytic firms because the platform is open.

But Twitter is about to face it’s doom
While Google struggle to reproduce the viral effect of micro blogging services Facebook’s grab for the real time feed was hampered by the need to privacy. Twitter has already gained wide acceptance and was never intended for private information in the first place. But a series of ominous events are slowly hollowing out the foundations of Twitter.

Twitter is being killed by…
Twitter has never been the most stable of tech startups. The service used to be plagued by downtime which became so frequent the Fail Whale error page became as famous as the service. The company itself is also changing management again, and again. Not a great trend this early in a one product company. The lack of leadership is clear to see.

Twitter UX
Twitter (the company) is constantly changing and evolving it’s product. Which is a great way to organically fit the needs of their users. But Twitter (the company) is doing this in a somewhat odd way. It started when Retweeting (passing on another users tweet as a sign of encouragement while marking it with their name and RT) was made a part of the product, after it’s wide adoption by users, Twitter (the company) decided to implement it differently than the usual Retweets. This lead to better statistics, but also a fractured UX as apps now had to implement both ways to RT because users didn’t like the new one. Eventually Twitter (the company) incorporated the old style Retweets but called the function Quote Tweet instead. And the problems were just getting started.

Twitter app insanity
Twitter apps were almost a category on their own in the beginning of the Appstore. Twitter has become so important to mobile phone manufacturers they always showcase a twitter app with their new flagship phones. But Twitter wanted to control the experience, like Apple. Maybe a good idea. But really bad execution. They bought Atebits, the developers behind the most popular Twitter apps for iOS and Mac. Have you ever pulled down a list to refresh? Atebits invented that. So why was this a problem? Sounds great, right?

Tweetie and Twitter

Totally worth a years work right? Not just detail changes at all. Nope.

After being purchased by Twitter (the company), the newly renamed Twitter for Mac and Twitter for iPhone started being updated less frequently… Let me make that clear, having the developer of the apps work closer with the Twitter development team made them update the apps less often.

Then shit really hit the fan. Twitter (the company) redesigned all their interfaces to be similar across platforms. Starting with a roll out on iPad, then web then the rest, Twitter (the company) streamlined their interface development.. in theory.
What really happened? The interfaces now looked the same, but they didn’t work the same. In fact, certain features only exist on certain platforms even though the interfaces look the same. Which makes it really hard as a user to remember what you can do where.

Later on the developers behind Atebits have left Twitter (the company), possibly in raging despair. And Twitter (the service) is fracturing into a mess. Not just between interfaces but functions as well. For example with the roll out of the activity tab you can follow some of the things people are doing through Twitter, following, unfollowing, making lists and so on. These features, which btw totally contradict the extreme simplicity of the core product, are weirdly integrated into the web interface as the afterthought they are. And it’s only available on the web.

Summery
Twitter (the company) is destroying Twitter (the services) with some sort of odd design-by-committee culture.  No matter if you like or dislike these new features, the case is clear that teams behind Twitter (the service) definitely aren’t working towards the same goal.

This is sad. Because I love Twitter (the service). And I don’t like that it’s being killed by Twitter (the company). Please RT this if you agree.

Update:

Apparently the sentiment is echoed by people leaving Twitter (the company).

Update 2:

In December 2011 Twitter updated their entire line of interfaces. The design changes were clearly aimed at making Twitter a lot more interesting for new users.

Twitter divided itself into different parts, seemingly with different uses:

Twitter areas of interest

The new Twitter, totally intuitive.. Derp.

Sounds great right? What could possibly be the problem!

Twitter didn’t actually change. And Twitter (the service) does not actually have these different areas of interest. So any user checking them out will quickly get confounded. What is the difference between “Home” and “Me”? I have no idea. But to make this obvious, Twitter (the company) has removed Me and Tweet from the web interface which basically means they have these left: Home (My feed), Connect (replies, RTs and follows) and Discover (search damnit, it’s just search!).

To make things better worse, the UI is even more fragmented. Twitter no longer has updated clients for iPad and Mac. Apparently the job previously done by one single guy is just to much for an organization of 300 or so.

But it get’s even better worse. The UI of the web and iPhone version, while both being updated simultaneously for this new paradigm, still do not follow the same UI standards and are structured differently. Don’t ask about Android. Twitter (the company) must really, really, hate Android.

Anyone want to build a Twitter killer, possibly built upon the API of Twitter to simplify the transfer of users? I’m available right now.

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Nov 16 2011
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Game development, Gamification, Personal, Web

Elisabet Grétarsdóttir explains Gamification at SIME 2011

The last day at SIME, Sweden’s largest digital/web conference in Stockholm, a panel of guests took to the stage to have a panel discussion about gamification.

Gamification is the latest and greatest buzz word in a long line of hype from digital marketing companies. But gamification is different because unlike social media and the like the Gamification concept is loaned from the hugely profitable games industry.

At SIME this year the panel consisted of representatives from World of Horses Online, CCP games and an associate professor from the Stockholm School of Economics. The topic was gamification and was simply introduced as the concept of using mechanics and design from the games industry to market products and services in non entertainment industries.

Elisabet, from CCP games, really gave a show with clear and consice ideas about gamification.
She started off by describing the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
An extrinsic motivator, which are mostly used in gamification today, are external rewards given to the player for achieving certain tasks. Such as points to shoot a bird accurately or a badge to check in at a location
An intrinsic motivator is an internal reward the player experiences because he/she achieves something in the context of the game. Internal rewards are feelings based on. Social recognition or completing a challenge.

One of her most memorable quotes was saying she’d like to Gamify the games industry by moving from extrinsic to intrinsic motivators.

Another one was a sharp critique to enforced seriousness while stating a point about humans being playful creatures:

why can we hug at a soccer game but not in the board room?

Elisabet also rocked the end of the panel by giving an example of how she would revolutionize boutique shopping by gamifying a H&M shop into a “minecraft retail experience” to, in her own words, “create a platform for creativity and self expression”.

The audience and the panel alike seemed almost shocked by the simple truths laid out by Elisabet on gamification. I bet that if she has any say, gamification will be less of a buzz word and more of a business strategy from now on.
One can only hope.

PS
I’m writing this on an iPad balanced on my knee while I’m eating so if this post is in shambles, please check back in an hour or so and I’ll try to polish the turd.

Update 1
Robin from the Stockholm School of Economics mailed me an update, apparently I got both her school and her title wrong.. Sorry Robin, keep up the great work!

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Nov 16 2011
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Gamification, Web

Gamification at SIME 2011

Second day of SIME 2011 coming up and today, finally, we’ll get into the nitty and gritty of gamification with a talk from CCP‘s Elísabet Grétarsdóttiroi, global strategist for marketing.

Hopefully this will be awesome. I’ll be live tweeting the event all day and half the night and writing about what she and the other speakers had to say as soon as possible.

So visit again soon for updates.

update
CCP link works now! Sorry about that.

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Nov 15 2011
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Gamification, Web

SIME Stockholm day 1

A week ago I was contacted by Bloggbyrån to be a theme blogger for SIME, Sweden’s largest web/tech conference. I would write about how the conference talked about and around gamification. I’ve been talking gamification since I started studying game design, long before it became a buzzword, so how could I refuse?

My first day here and I’m amazed
Normally the Swedish conferences are timid and partly boring events as the swedes are quite reserved and the production values are quite low. Not so at SIME.
The production values are through the roof and people are talking fast to get around the room. None of them make it.

The topics are wide but the theme is central
The speakers here at SIME are varied and well drilled, no slow moments for the audience. From representatives of the BBC to new web startups to multinational investors playing the piano somehow it all ties in neatly with our moderator Ola Ahlvarsson’s set theme: “Passion Wins!”.

My head is buzzing
Not from the champagne but from the pace. The comedian wrapping up spotted my tweet and made me a bit and none of us can move more than 3 feet without talking to someone. This is not the usual environment for a Swede and for anyone interested in entrepreneurship it’s amazing.

Tomorrow is another day
Of SIME and with the schedule ahead of me it seems to be even more packed than today. Right now this rundown is the best I can do. Now I’m off to the bar to find out if there is more champagne and anyone interested in discussing gamification.

One more thing
I was apparently the most active twitterer today, even after the comedian made fun of me, and my tweets were picked up by a Swedish newspaper and retweeted widely.
Dagens media – de leder SIME twittrandet

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Nov 10 2011
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Design, Web

The Verge video and Lenovo Ultrabook

The Verge does amazing video reviews. Short, snappy, all the info, great shots and great narration.

Lenovo has really made a beautiful notebook with the u300. I have no idea why no one else has tried the book design but it looks great!

The video is after the jump.

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Oct 23 2011
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Personal

Why we need to define our lives

Life is not a chance event
You make choices – spend your time -
to create substance. Instead of just dreaming
about what might be.
But once in a while, you need a time-out.
Peace and relaxation that give you time to think.
To define substance…

-unknown

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Sep 20 2011
5 Comments
Design, Personal

What to use the iPad for

When the iPad was announced a lot of people wondered what it was for. Why carry a giant iPod touch with you instead of a small laptop? When Apple later unveiled the updated MacBook Air a lot of people asked the same thing. But the iPad is still flying off the shelves and people love the machine.

But if you’re still wondering why the iPad is good I did some snooping. Actually I’ve asked non-leading, weird, questions to every iPad user near me for close to two years just to understand the behavior. And I think I’ve solved it.

Why the iPad feels wrong for real work
Some people will tell you the iPad does multitasking and that it works great. That’s just not true. It does uni-tasking and great app switching.

The difference is it really forces you to focus on one thing at a time. I have no problem switching between apps to get stuff I need to send or reply to that email with facts from simplenote etc. But you can’t have all that on the screen at the same time like you are used to.

This makes people believe it’s hard to use for work. Simply because they have to relearn their entire workflow. The desktop experience simply doesn’t translate to the tablet and it makes people feel less efficient.

using iPad for work

Why the iPad is awesomee
The iPad actually makes you more effective. Not efficient. You won’t be doing things at the same speed as you do on a desktop, and that might frustrate you. But it’ll also force you to think about what is most important. Usually, in both my experience and my sneaky interviews, making the end result better.

The iPad really does almost everything a desktop computer does. So far I’ve found two things it doesn’t do as well as a desktop:

  • Create graphics, the iPad simply cannot compete with Adobe Photoshop and a mouse.
  • Formatting text. Yes I’m serious. You can do it. But it takes forever.

The second thing the iPad doesn’t to really do highlights the efficiency vs effectiveness problem. It doesn’t format text well. But is that really what you should be doing? Yes a well formated document looks a lot more professional than a poorly formatted one. But the content is really the important thing, right? And seriously, you could’ve made a template for those visual documents years ago.

Don’t worry though, there’s probably an app for that.

 

The ending was intended as sarcasm and not rampant fanboyism. Though I probably am a rampant fanboy of Apple’s take on design.

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