Last week at the gamification world congress I hosted a workshop on inclusive gamification design. We used 6 different persona to test if they could use a chosen gamified tool or software. The purpose of the exercise was to create awareness that when we are designing solutions for an enterprise wide audience with a variety of people from both gender, various age groups, different levels of skill and confidence when it comes to using and exploring work related tools.
Groups through discussion then needed to choose what motivational factors they would need to add to engage all the persona. They also needed to consider whether to include some more or take away some of the gamification elements already in the system. Teams quickly identified that their chosen tool would not appeal to all and that some changes were in order. In fact to some extent it alarmed a few platform vendors that maybe they were missing a group or more than one in the process. What also came out strongly is that some teams identified that some persona’s were just not in their target audience.
Rightfully, all systems don’t appeal to all people for very good reasons.
I would actually say the more tailored your gamification journey can be for each persona the better chance you have at creating engagement. In one system you can differentiate the journey with question identifiers or storytelling to guide users down the path that is most appropriate to them. I would highly recommend to allow for an element of personalisation by the user which is linked to their profile and then changes what mechanics and motivational factors will work.
In a recent design I created 6 journeys for learners. When entering the learning platform for the first time individuals were asked to set some of their personal preferences and learning goals, this then allows for tailored gamification and content. A good compelling storyline with more than one outcome based on choices the user makes, can also work very well.
What have you done in your gamification design to adapt to a multitude of user persona?
