A mini introduction into Design Thinking
Before digging into the importance of how to apply a proper design framework and how to apply it to a gamified system, lets first look into what design actually means and what it is. It’s not just simply a form of art or a type of creative expression. It is so much more; it is a creative process of problem evaluation (and hopefully solving), a general approach of addressing and approaching challenges.
This is where something like Design Thinking comes in and before going on about gamification, let’s do a tiny intro into the world of Design Thinking:
(1) It’s purpose driven: At the core of any Design Thinking process, you approach a challenge with a goal. You’re not just trying to create something beautiful, you are trying to achieve some kind of objective, some kind of purpose. Therefore, the design (remember not just looks, but approach to challenges) of a gamified system needs to constantly refer back to your goal.
When gamifying systems always ask yourself what goal do you want your user to fulfill?
(2) At the center of it all are humans: Systems are designed around and for people. These aren’t some mindless robots clicking buttons. These are humans with emotions, motivations, experiences. At the core of it all is the human experience and when using a Design Thinking approach, the human experience is at the center of it all. It is about creating process to achieve your goal, while keeping it human.
Always remember, the experience of your gamified system is greater than the gamified system itself and any of the game elements!
(3) The balance of creativity and rational: As important as it is to formalize and break down systems into tiny parts, dissecting them in a “rational” way through data and algorithms, it is just as important to approach systems with a creative mind. Meaning, sometimes things just are elegant and beautiful and cannot be reduced to numbers. Don’t get me wrong data is king, queen or whatever you want to call it, but data cannot solve (and explain) everything. Design Thinking aims at finding the balance between these two poles.
Quick intro into "abductive reasoning": A term developed by Charles Sanders Peirse, explaining “interference from from insufficient judgement”, meaning, we don’t quite know what the solution is (due to lack of information) but we can kinda guess what it is and start from what we know and develop it further. Kind of like starting with your gut feeling, or having a hunch and further exploring it.
(4) It is an iterative process: You (most probably) ain’t gonna build the perfect system at your first try. And that’s actually a good thing. By trying something, testing it, failing at it, learning about it, changing and trying again, you improve the system overtime. This is what we call design practice.
When you decide to create a gamified system, you don’t just sit down and make a product. You start with a rough version, a fundamental skeleton. Then you play, you test, you adapt, you ask other people, you fail, you learn and overtime you improve and create a perfectish product.
