Gamification in Ux: Progression and Feedback
Feedback is one of the key principles in gamification, that is important for improving the user experience. Providing feedback to the user about their progress, status and actions helps in showing them how far they have reached in achieving their goals.
Feedback is also important in acknowledging user’s actions and showing results to keep them informed.
However, we currently lack the feedback loop in our product that is used by students as a primary mode of learning. And the problems it has caused are:
Problem:
- There is no standard mean for measuring the student’s progress through a lesson and a subject in the platform.
- There is no indication of a student’s progress, so they don’t know how much they have progressed in their learning journey, and how much more they need to go.
- There is not much feedback for student’s actions in the platform that can motivate them to keep going and learning.
Goal:
- Students should be provided with proper feedback wherever possible throughout the application, so that they are aware of their status.
- Students should be able to see their journey and status through any subject/lesson(where they are, and where they need to be) at all times
- Students should be able to setup their goals, and see their progress and activity, towards achieving that goal.
Proposed Solutions:
Providing positive feedback that informs students about their progress in gaining competences, supports their feeling of competence and achievement.
- Show students their progress across topics, subjects and modules.
- Provide them with positive feedback.
- Motivate them through encouragement messages during learning if they are not doing so well.
- Motivate them in achieving mini-goals that add up to the main goal, either defined by the platform, or set by them personally.
- Motivate them to move up the ladder by setting a slightly harder goal after they have achieved one goal.
- Motivate them by rewarding them badges, which they can level up.
- Element of surprise during progression can make them to want more.
Why these solutions.
Progression helps in framing, guiding, and supporting students through organizing information into categories in order to focus attention.
- It eliminates or reduce the I-don’t-know-how-to-get-started problem and allow the student to restart if he or she gets stopped or stumped.
- Real-time feedbacks act as a promise to the players that they can achieve the goal, and provide motivation to keep playing.
- It inspires them to continue, knowing how close they are to achieving their goal, instead of leaving in the middle because they don’t know where they are going.
Leveling up keeps their interest levels intact throughout the learning journey.
- If a task is too easy, the learner gets bored; too difficult, and they are overwhelmed. In the short term, the replacement of a completed task with a slightly more difficult one helps to ensure the learner is optimally stimulated as their skillset expands
- By doing this, we can successfully grab the student’s attention and increase their interest.
Over whelming improbability instills the emotions of excitement and wonder in students.
- Curious items amaze players at their unusualness, unlikelihood, and improbability without breaking out of realm of possibilities.
- The fastest way to improve someone’s daily quality of life is to “present a specific goal to a person, something to do and something to look forward (rewards)
Constructive feedback keeps the students at their toes, and allows them to choose the direction they want to go in, thus instilling the game mechanic of “voluntary participation” as well.
- Responsive feedback makes it apparent to them the results of a decision or an action immediately.
- Delayed feedback can result in lack of student’s interest because they do not know what happened in the earlier activities that they went through.
- Showing the students the details of their satisfying work, mirrors back the positive sense of their capabilities.
- Accomplishments help in increasing the student’s self-worth, which in turn adds to their motivation.
