In our previous blog, we discussed the main principles of gamification. We've shown you a number of techniques you can use to give your application or platform that little bit extra. In this blog post, our UX designer, Steven Dhaen, shows us some of his favorite gamification best practices; apps where gamification techniques have been successfully applied. We won’t go as far as the meta- or multiverse but we’ll be discussing some subtle ways in which gamification techniques can improve your user experience and therefore, your daily online life.
So without further ado, let's have a look at these best practices.
Habitify
Gamification technique: goals
It’s hard to say how long it takes to create a habit. But the bottom line is extremely simple: If you want to make something into a long-lasting habit, you need to repeat it every day. Habitify is an application that helps you to achieve that. The app deserves to be on this list because it uses gamification in a very clever way. By creating a dashboard and giving you the ability to set your goals you can teach yourself to become a better version of yourself.
With Habitify, you can define what you want to incorporate into your daily life. It turns your life into a game, but in a good way. For example, a lot of people want to read more books. And although they might have the intention to read every day, life can get in the way. We all have daily tasks to do, family to see, and work that’s waiting. A simple ‘must-read list’ or another round of new years resolutions just won’t do the trick. When you set a goal and you have a dashboard that confronts you with your goals and your progress, it can motivate you. Apart from enjoying the reading itself, you can check off your goal. When you repeat your new habit a few days in a row, you’ll get a streak, and nobody wants to lose that.
Uber Eats
Gamification technique: journey
Remember ordering food a few years ago? When you had a leaflet of a local place serving pizza right on your doorstep. Sounds nice but it was quite a struggle for more than one reason. Without explaining every detail, we can all agree that the food delivery journey became a lot more convenient over the years. One of the big players is Uber Eats, the taxi of food.
A lot of things can go wrong during a food delivery; the restaurant can forget your order, the delivery can be too slow which results in cold food, the rider doesn’t find your address,... You get the picture, but all these problems disappear thanks to Uber Eats. Like a lot of other delivery platforms, they use the progress bar so you can follow the processing of your order. You can see when the restaurant received your order and starts working on it. And then the real magic happens; the moment your rider leaves the restaurant and heads your way. By using the know-how from their taxi app, Uber turned the most horrible part of the process into a game. They let you follow the rider in real-time, making you feel like gaming in the ’90s. You can see your order coming your way and there’s that little extra sparkle when the doorbell rings.
Lookup
Gamification technique: badges, journey
Making learning fun and easy, that's what LookUp is all about. It's a gamified platform designed for one clear goal: to enrich your vocabulary. It uses quizzes, progress bars, and badges to help you learn one new word every day and you can keep on repeating them until they become part of your daily conversations.
Copilot
Copilot helps you to track your finances and plan your expenses. Without using groundbreaking techniques, the app gives you a fun and easy way to check your budget. Turning a rather dull subject into an experience.
Bounty Tasker
Gamification technique: goals, pretending, journey
Bounty tasker takes gamification to a whole new level. It doesn’t only use techniques from the gaming world, it turns your to-do list into a game. You can unlock characters, accessories, and level-up by coding your daily tasks. To-do list on steroids, a throwback to the 90s,… call it what you want but Bounty Tasker is a very unique and fun way to stay on track.
MySugr
Gamification technique: goals, journey
“Together, we make diabetes suck less!” What’s not to like about MySugr’s catchphrase? With badges, progress bars, reports, and a personalized dashboard this app help people with diabetes to manage their health. A true lifesaver.
Habitica
Gamification technique: goals, points
Habitica is another example of thorough gamification. A habit-building and productivity app that uses retro RPG elements to gamify your tasks and goals. It’s not for everybody, but it’s a way to make daily life fun and colorful.
These were a few of our favorite gamified applications, not the most straightforward, most popular apps but examples we really love. We're curious about your favorites!
