Gamification Mechanic Monday: Mischief
As a child we may all remember those moments where you hid something on your parents or siblings or set up a small prank, just for sheer fun. No other reason. Hiding away the very thing they were after or the noise making cushion on the seat, which would cause temporary embarrassment. If you were like my giggling usually gave away the whole thing, so they knew some mischief was coming up around the corner.
In work, I know this happens between colleagues and in my student days I worked in a technical support call centre and one of the pranks was to hand a fake recorded message number with an angry customer on it to colleagues and then see their reaction. Usually the target was under pressure, but then caught on it was a recording and a whole bunch of guilty laughing faces would appear.
Now when you are using this technique to integrate into your gamification design, I would suggest keeping it fun and lined with your brand and the audience you are targeting. Making fun of a client, may not be what they are open to unless you have a brand that is known for doing it. But the less offensive variety can be to do the childlike version of telling your customers and employees someone has mischievously been in action and it is their mission to find out what has happened. It can be from re-arranging the normal menu’s to having the mouse navigation do unusual things or hiding items.
Where have you seen successful use of mischief as a gamification mechanic?
