How to make it addicting?

What would happen if we would make even boring tasks engaging and fun and addicting?

Recall the Kamal-directed Malayalam film Pookalam Varavayi.

You might be confused as to why I am discussing a 1991 film here.

In the movie, Jayaram's character (driver uncle) feeds Geethu when she refuses to eat. How?

Gamification is the art of taking all the enjoyable and captivating features found in games and applying them to mundane situations where you have to do things but may not necessarily want to.

While gamification is still a relatively new concept, my Vellyamma (Our Amminimema) is a master in incentivization and gamification approaches.

She always says something like “Let’s play the silent game!”, “Let’s see who can tidy up the most quickly?” She will always be there to help with chores, making it feel like we are a team. She taught us to do chores by working together instead of through fear and threats.

Do you know "Aeroplane is landing" game? You can play this game when your kid refuses to have food. All you need to do is explain to your child that their mouth is a huge airport and that the spoon you are using to feed them is an aeroplane.

Imagine a job where all you do is click the mouse continuously for 5–6 hours at a rate of 7 clicks per second. How much salary do you require for this job? We all know it will be boring if we get a job like that.

Now, what if your monitor looks like this?

Now how much will you pay me to finish this task? Gamers click between 5 and 7 times each second on average. It's all about narration. India has more Dream11 users than total Demat accounts opened since 1996. Because Dream 11 have added a dose of excitement and adventure. The only goal of games is to make the player feel good. That feel when you save the princess.

Humans have emotions, insecurities, and reasons, why they want or do not want to accomplish particular tasks, so optimizing for these factors, is essential.

An app uses epic meaning and calling to get kids with cancer at Children's Hospital to update their pain journals, called Pain Squad. The app then encouraged kids to track their pain twice a day to earn police badges by using characters from popular Canadian police dramas.

The kids feel that they are a vital part of a team that depends on them. The Insight timer app is one of my favourites since it encourages me to meditate every day by forming a routine! This habit was just developed as a result of gamification features in-app. It's not just about points badges and leader board because every single game out there has these game elements but still, most games are boring.

Expert in gamification Yu-kai Chou believes that real gamification occurs when we appeal to our core human desires. He believes that these eight universal core impulses can be used to generate "fun & engagement" in almost any task.

8 Universal Core Drives

1. Meaning – the desire to feel that our actions have a purpose

2. Accomplishment – The drive to achieve and overcome challenges

3. Empowerment – The desire to choose one’s own direction and try a variety of solutions to a problem

4. Ownership – The desire to own things and have possession

5. Social Influence – The drive to interact with, help, learn from and compete with others

6. Scarcity – The drive of wanting things you can’t have

7. Unpredictability – The drive of wanting to know what will happen next, and...

8. Avoidance – The drive to avoid pain or negative consequences.

Consider ordering a customized pizza on an app. When you launch the app, you are greeted by this screen.

Now imagine you are customizing pizza like this.

Which one do you want to use? Which one is fun?

If we apply good gamification principles and focus on what truly drives fun and motivation on products and services; Then there won't be any mundane situations where you have to do things but may not want to.

Do you agree? Share your thoughts in the comments below!