Although many gameful design methods have emerged recently, designers still lack standard evaluation methods for evaluating gameful design. For other established areas of UX, heuristic evaluation methods are commonly used. In usability engineering, heuristics are general principles or broad usability guidelines that have been used to design and evaluate interactive systems. Heuristic evaluation, in the context of usability, is the use of said principles as a usability inspection method by experts to identify usability problems in an existing design as part of an iterative design process. These are fast and inexpensive tools that can be used to identify and address design issues early in a project. These are not meant to replace user tests, but rather add to the set of evaluation tools: while heuristic evaluation can be applied early in a project, user tests are conducted later to find issues that could not be captured before.

The Gameful Design Heuristics are a new set of guidelines for heuristic evaluation of gameful design in interactive systems. It is the first tool of its kind focused specifically on evaluating gameful design through the lens of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational affordances. This set of heuristics is aimed at enabling evaluators to identify gaps in a gameful system’s design. The Gameful Design Heuristics are organized in three categories and twelve dimensions, as depicted below. Click on a dimension to know more about it.

Intrinsic Motivation Heuristics

This category includes affordances related to the three psychological needs introduced by Self-Determination Theory (competence, autonomy, and relatedness), as well as purpose and meaning, which facilitate internalization SDT, and immersion RRA.

Purpose and Meaning

Affordances aimed at helping users identify a meaningful goal that will be achieved through the system and can benefit the users themselves or other people.

I1. Meaning

The system clearly helps users identify a meaningful contribution (to themselves or to others).

Guiding Questions

Does the system provide enough context for the user to understand the benefits (to themselves or to others) of what they are doing?

I2. Information and Reflection

The system clearly helps users identify a meaningful contribution (to themselves or to others).

Guiding Questions

Does the system provide information that allows the user to reflect on their real-life achievements and how to improve themselves outside of the system?

References

OCT  Epic Meaning and Calling
HEX  Philanthropist
SUP  Epic Win
REC  Information and Reflection

Challenge and Competence

Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of competence through accomplishing difficult challenges or goals.

I3. Increasing Challenge

The system offers challenges that grow with the user’s skill.

Guiding Questions

Does the system present challenges in a way that motivates the user to tackle them?
Is the difficulty of the challenges adjusted to the user’s ability and skill?
Do the challenges’ difficulty increase over time?

I4. Onboarding

The system offers initial challenges for newcomers that help them learn how it works.

Guiding Questions

Does the system present an initial tutorial or explanation of the first steps the user should take?
Is the tutorial or initial explanation challenging and fun?

I5. Self-challenge

The system helps users discover or create new challenges to test themselves.

Guiding Questions

Does the system offer features to allow the user to create their own challenges?

References

OCT  Development and Accomplishment
MDL  Challenge lenses and Intrinsic rewards
HEX  Achiever
KEG  Competence: Challenge
SUP  Challenge yourself and Battle the bad guys
REC  Engagement

Completeness and Mastery

Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of competence by completing series of tasks or collecting virtual achievements.

I6. Progressive Goals

The system always presents the next goals users can pursue that are immediately achievable.

Guiding Questions

Does the system always present a new goal right after the user completes the current goal?
Are the suggested new goals immediately achievable (adequate to the user’s ability and skill)?
Are the suggested new goals always a bit more difficult than the previous?

I7. Achievement

The system lets users keeps track of their achievements or advancements.

Guiding Questions

Does the system allow the user to keep track of their achievements and/or completed goals?
Is the achievement tracking meaningful, i.e., does it help the user understand which new abilities or skills were acquired after each achievement or what rewards were awarded?

References

OCT  Development and Accomplishment
MDL  Goal lenses, Action lenses, and Intrinsic rewards
HEX  Achiever
KEG  Competence: Achievements
SUP  Seek out and complete quests

Autonomy and Creativity

Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of autonomy by offering meaningful choices and opportunities for self-expression.

I8. Choice

The system provides users with choices on what to do or how to do something, which are interesting but also limited in scope according to each user’s capacity.

Guiding Questions

Does the system let the user freely choose their goals and tasks?
Does the system offer multiple paths for achieving similar results?
Does the system present choices that are adequate for the user’s ability and skills (i.e. don’t present too many choices at the beginning when the user does not understand all the choices)?
Does the system clearly inform the user about the available choices and their consequences?

I9. Self-expression

The system lets users express themselves or create new content.

Guiding Questions

Does the system let the user create new content for themselves or other users?
Does the system let the user express themselves (e.g. avatars, personalized pages, status messages, etc.)?

I10. Freedom

The system lets users experiment with new or different paths without fear or serious consequences.

Guiding Questions

Does the system offer multiple paths for achieving similar results?
Does the system let the user experiment with different paths without fear or serious consequences (e.g. they can go back and follow another path if the experiment does not work)?

References

OCT  Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback
MDL  Object lenses and Intrinsic rewards
HEX  Free Spirit
KEG  Autonomy
REC  Play and Choice

Relatedness

Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of relatedness through social interaction, usually with other users.

I11. Social Interaction

The system lets users connect and interact socially.

Guiding Questions

Does the system offer means for the user to interact with other users?
Are social interactions meaningful for the application, i.e., do they help users achieve their goals?

I12. Social Cooperation

The system offers the opportunity of users working together towards achieving common goals.

Guiding Questions

Does the system offer means for users to work together towards achieving common goals?
Are users adequately rewarded proportionally to the effort they invested in the collaborative work?

I13. Social Competition

The system lets users compare themselves with others or challenge other users.

Guiding Questions

Does the system offer means for users to compare themselves with others?
Does the system offer means for users to compete or challenge other users?

I14. Fairness

The system offers similar opportunities of success and progression for everyone and means for newcomers to feel motivated even when comparing themselves with veterans.

Guiding Questions

Is progression in the system balanced and fair, i.e., do all users have equal chance of achievement if they put the same effort and time into the system?
Do the system offer means for newcomers to progress at their own pace without feeling diminished by the progress of other users that are already ahead of them?

References

OCT  Social Influence and Relatedness
MDL  Intrinsic rewards
HEX  Socialiser
KEG  Relatedness
SUP  Recruit your allies
REC  Engagement

Immersion

Affordances aimed at immersing users into the system to improve their aesthetic experience, usually by means of a theme, narrative, or story, which can be real or fictional.

I15. Narrative

The system offers users a meaningful narrative or story with which they can relate to.

Guiding Questions

Does the system feature a theme or story that provides an aesthetic experience?
Is the theme or story meaningful and connected to the users’ goals?
Is the theme or story clearly explained?

I16. Perceived Fun

The system affords users the possibility of interacting with and being part of the story (easy fun).

Guiding Questions

Does the system allow the user to interact with and influence the story?
Does the way a user influences the story also extend its influence to other users?

References

KEG  Perceived Fun
SUP  Adopt a secret identity
REC  Exposition

Extrinsic Motivation Heuristics

This category includes affordances that provide an outcome or value separated from the activity itself SDT OCT: ownership and rewards, scarcity, and loss avoidance.

Ownership and Rewards

Affordances aimed at motivating users through extrinsic rewards or possession of real or virtual goods. Ownership is different from competence when acquiring goods is perceived by the user as the reason for interacting with the system, instead of feeling competent.

E1. Ownership

The system lets users own virtual goods or build an individual profile over time, which can be developed by continued use of the system and with which users can relate to.

Guiding Questions

Does the system feature an individual profile that the user can evolve over time?
Does the system let users own virtual goods?
Are the user profile and/or virtual goods meaningful and useful to the user?
Is progression of the user profile or acquisition of virtual goods a result of the user’s progression in the system?

E2. Rewards

The system offers incentive rewards for interaction and continued use, which are valuable to users and proportional to the amount of effort invested.

Guiding Questions

Does the system reward the user for completing tasks or progressing in their goals?
Does the system reward the user for continued use?
Are rewards proportional to the amount of effort, time, and dedication that the user put into the system?
Are the rewards meaningful and useful for the user?

E3. Virtual Economy

The system lets users exchange the result of their efforts with in-system or outside rewards.

Guiding Questions

Does the system let the user exchange their rewards or possessions with other users?
Does the system let the user exchange their rewards or possessions for other virtual goods?
Does the system let the user exchange their rewards or possessions for outside (real-life) rewards?

References

OCT  Ownership and Possession
MDL  Intrinsic rewards
HEX  Player
KEG  Extrinsic motivation
SUP  Collect and activate power-ups

Scarcity

Affordances aimed at motivating users through feelings of status or exclusivity by means of acquisition of difficult or rare rewards, goods, or achievements.

E4. Scarcity

The system offers interesting features or rewards that are rare or difficult to obtain.

Guiding Questions

Does the system offer rewards or virtual goods that are rare or difficult to obtain?
Does the system limit certain features only to users with certain accomplishments?
Does the system let users display the rare or difficult goods or rewards that they have obtained?
Is the difficulty of obtaining such rare goods or rewards proportional to the amount of effort and time invested into the system?

References

OCT  Scarcity and Impatience

Loss Avoidance

Affordances aimed at leading users to act with urgency, by creating situations in which they could lose acquired or potential rewards, goods, or achievements if they do not act immediately.

E5. Loss Avoidance

The system creates urgency through possible losses unless users act immediately.

Guiding Questions

Does the system feature timed tasks, which make the user lose an opportunity if they are not completed in time?
Does the user feel they are going to lose something unless they keep using the system continually (e.g. rewards for continued use, information, social connections, etc.)?
Does the system make the user feel that they should keep using the system due to the amount of time or effort already invested?

References

OCT  Loss and Avoidance

Context-Dependent Heuristics

This category includes the feedback, unpredictability, and disruption affordances, which can afford either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, depending on contextual factors such as the kind and the user’s personal perception regarding the task at hand.

Feedback

Affordances aimed at informing users of their progress and the next available actions or challenges.

C1. Clear and Immediate Feedback

The systems always inform users immediately of any changes or accomplishments in an easy and graspable way.

Guiding Questions

Does the system immediately inform the user when any change in status occur?
Does the system immediately inform the user when any task is completed or any goal is achieved?
Is the feedback always clear and understandable?
Does the feedback always explain exactly what has happened and which action caused it?

C2. Actionable Feedback

The system always informs users the next available actions and improvements available.

Guiding Questions

Does the system immediately inform the user what are the next available actions after any task is completed or any goal is achieved?
Does the system always inform how the next available actions are connected to the completed action?

C3. Graspable Progress

Feedback always tells users where they stand and what is the path ahead for progression.

Guiding Questions

Does the system always clearly inform the user where they stand in progression and possessions?
Does the system immediately inform which is the next step in progression that can be achieved and how to achieve it?
Does the system always inform which are the obtainable rewards or virtual goods and how to obtain them?

References

OCT  Empowerment of Creativity and Feedback
MDL  Feedback lenses

Unpredictability

Affordances aimed at surprising users with variable tasks, challenges, feedback, or rewards.

C4. Varied Challenges

The system offers unexpected variability in the challenges or tasks presented to the user.

Guiding Questions

Does the system feature any unexpected variability in the tasks or goals that can be completed (e.g. by randomly suggesting a different goal)?

C5. Varied Rewards

The system offers unexpected variability in the rewards that are offered to the user.

Guiding Questions

Does the system award unexpected rewards for achievements or progression (e.g. by partly randomizing the rewards obtained for a completed task or goal)?
Does the user feel they can influence their chance of getting better random rewards?

References

OCT  Unpredictability and Curiosity
MDL  Varied challenge, Varied feedback, and Secrets
HEX  Free Spirit
REC  Play

Change and Disruption

Affordances aimed at engaging users with disruptive tendencies by allowing them to help improve the system, in a positive rather than destructive way.

C6. Innovation

The system lets users contribute with ideas, content, plugins, or modifications aimed at improving, enhancing, or extending the system itself.

Guiding Questions

Does the system let the user create new content for themselves or other users?
Can the system be modified by the user in any way (e.g. by changing the system directly or through plugins or mods)?
Can the users contribute with ideas or suggestions?
Can the users influence in the system’s evolution (e.g. by voting in their preferred new features)?

C7. Disruption Control

The system is protected against cheating, hacking, or other forms of manipulation from users.

Guiding Questions

Is the system protected against cheating?
Is the system protected against hacking?
Does the system protect users from harassment from other users?
Does the system limit the user’s ability to gain unfair advantages over other users by any means?

References

HEX  Disruptor

CHI 2018 Course

We are hosting a new edition of our Gamification course during CHI 2018, with the title “Gamification: Tools and Techniques for Motivating Users“.

This expanded course will be structured into three 80-minute units, which will give the participants enough time to learn about gamification, the new gameful design heuristics, and apply them in a practical exercise. It will include an initial session in which participants will learn the basics about Gamification and Gameful Design, and will work on a practical exercise of gamifying a regular HCI activity. Next, we will supply attendees with our gameful design heuristics and train them in using the heuristics to evaluate the gameful system they designed in the first session. Finally, in the third unit, we will be discussing how to generate design ideas with heuristics.

The course will be held on Thursday, April 26^th, 2018 from 9:00 am to 3:20 pm (with breaks for coffee and lunch).

Content

The course is structured into three units, with a gameful design session and a heuristic evaluation session (two supervised hands-on exercises) taking up the majority of the course time. The goals of the course and its heuristics evaluation session are:

• Understand the basic concepts of gamification and the basic gameful design process.
• Understand the 28 gameful design heuristics and apply them correctly to a game or gameful application and understand the differences.
• Use the gameful design heuristics and the Hexad model to turn design flaws and improvement suggestions into design actions that can be addressed in the next iteration of a design cycle.

Our lectures provide additional insight into what our gameful design heuristics are and how we believe they can help designers and UX professionals improve their gameful products.

Lecture: Introduction to Gamification

We will give an overview of the field of gamification and put special focus on the practical approaches to gameful design and how to intervene in regular product interactions to make them more playful and motivating. We will discuss this using many examples from successful applications of gameful design approaches.

Lecture: Introduction to Gameful Design Heuristics

Heuristics are principles or broad (usability) guidelines that have been used to design and evaluate interactive systems, but our set of heuristics is aimed at enabling interaction designers to identify gaps in a gameful system’s design. We will introduce the 12 heuristics dimensions and the three categories that they are split into: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and context-dependent heuristics, explaining their origins in the gamification and psychology literature.

Schedule

Audience

This course introduces gamification, gameful design, and a novel set of heuristics used to evaluate gameful applications, so an interest in either games and playful interaction is helpful for participants interested in the course. Given that these heuristics are aimed at people working with real-world designs, we invite industrial and academic HCI researchers, designers, and user experience professionals to participate. The course is particularly useful for people interested in game design and user experience evaluation.

Instructors

The instructors have taught a gameful design heuristics course before at CHI 2017.

Gustavo Fortes Tondello

Ph.D. Student in Personalized Health Gamification

Gustavo F. Tondello, M.Sc., is a Ph.D. student at the HCI Games Group, University of Waterloo, Canada with a main interest in gamification and games for health and learning. He has been investigating several topics related to the design, evaluation, and personalization of serious games and gamified applications, particularly regarding the application of player or user typologies in games and gamification. He has evaluated games professionally and has been teaching Computer Science courses at the University of Waterloo as part of his graduate studies.

Lennart Nacke

Director of the HCI Games Group

Lennart E. Nacke, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor for Human-Computer Interaction and Game Design at the University of Waterloo. He has many years of experience serving on the SIGCHI program and steering committees and teaching University graduate classes on HCI research methods. Dr. Nacke has co-organized many workshops for CHI over the past five years; he also chaired the CHI PLAY 2014 and Gamification 2013 conferences, served as technical program co-chair for CHI PLAY 2015, and served as the CHI Games and Play subcommittee co-chair for CHI 2017, and is currently the chair of the CHI PLAY steering committee.

Registration

You must register to the Course through the CHI 2018 registration process.