WHAT IS IT?
Whenever you’re engaged in an activity, there’s always that one factor that brought you there and the one(s) that bring you back may be the same, or things that came out of the activity after you did it. What we aim for in any learning module or gamified example, is to balance those factors to create the ideal incentives for users. Those little things that capture their interest, cause them to learn something new, or even build on the knowledge they’ve gained from doing the lesson. There is a threshold, however, that we need to be mindful of.
WHY NOT?
Whenever there’s an incentive applied to something, it’s worth investigating the outcome of that to see whether the users are getting too much of a good thing. A popular incentive, in the context of games, is leaderboards. A place where the highest scores are put on display.
Looking to the positive side of this incentive is that users are encouraged to do their best to be at the top for bragging rights amongst their peers. This is something that can also produce the unintended effects of cheating, or focusing more on the performance of that particular session as opposed to learning any lessons.
WRAPPING UP
In most cases, however, users are presented with proper incentives because they’ve been proven to be effective. There are also many other examples of how you can give incentives that you can explore on your own and see their impacts.
If you would like to explore more about gamification, mobile learning and eLearning, take a peek at our company website: Pathways Training and eLearning, at http://www.pathwaystrainingandelearning.com/ . We always look for fresh ways to engage learners and to make the learning experience as fun as possible!
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