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Product Design

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Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Conclusion

  • Behavioral Design, Game Design, Gamification Series, Human-Centered Design, Product Design, User Experience, UX Design

Real engagement is about designing experiences that people want to have. Here are some things that games do well that most apps don’t.

Article by Montgomery Singman
IDEAS IN BRIEF
Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Conclusion
  • Most apps use gamification as a manipulation layer to drive metrics, but people engage with things that are truly worthy of their time, not points or streak guilt.
  • Apps that people stick with do this by designing for intrinsic motivation, making the experience itself rewarding.
  • The true measure of success is whether users feel more capable, accomplished, and enriched for having used your app.
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8 min read

The New Makers

  • Artificial Intelligence, Career, Future of Work, Product Design, Technology, UX Design, UX Research

For researchers, AI tools are making the move from advising to building easier than ever. But the real obstacle was never technical. Meet the researchers who allowed themselves to create — and what the cost was.

Article by James Lang
IDEAS IN BRIEF
The New Makers
  • The article says that becoming a maker as a researcher is less about learning new tools or skills and more about giving yourself a new identity, and that without fixing the internal permission structures that define your swim lane, even the most democratized AI tools won’t turn a researcher into a maker — you don’t have a founder; you have a frustrated advisor with a prototype.
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20 min read

Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Chapter 5: Implementation

  • Behavioral Design, Game Design, Gamification Series, Player Engagement, Product Design, User Psychology, UX Design

Learn why authentic gamification is rooted in game genres rather than just collecting badges.

Article by Montgomery Singman
IDEAS IN BRIEF
Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Chapter 5: Implementation
  • The article says that successful gamification is picking a game genre that fits your app’s core activities and user psychology, building satisfying intrinsic loops before adding extrinsic rewards, and iterating nonstop, and that without these foundations, you don’t have gamification; you have a progress bar that has a terminal point.
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5 min read

Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Chapter 4: Special Considerations

  • Behavioral Design, Education Technology, Game Design, Gamification Series, Player Engagement, Product Design, UX Design

Learn why your badges and streaks won’t wow kids raised on Minecraft.

Article by Montgomery Singman
IDEAS IN BRIEF
Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Chapter 4: Special Considerations
  • The piece explains that young users, trained by thousands of hours of expert game design, can smell fake gamification at a hundred paces.
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4 min read

The Part of Agile Designers Fear the Most: Imperfect Work

  • Agile, Design Process, Product Design, UX Design

Learn about the most difficult challenge for designers in Agile.

Article by Paivi Salminen
IDEAS IN BRIEF
The Part of Agile Designers Fear the Most: Imperfect Work
  • The article argues that designers aren’t afraid of shipping imperfect work; they’re afraid of imperfect work remaining imperfect because teams tend not to come back to improve what they’ve already shipped.
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4 min read

Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Chapter 3: The Framework

  • Behavioral Design, Game Design, Gamification Series, Player Engagement, Product Design, UX Design

Find out why slapping gamification on your product without first selecting a genre is the silent killer of your engagement strategy.

Article by Montgomery Singman
IDEAS IN BRIEF
Gamification 2.0. Beyond Points and Badges: Designing for Players, Not Metrics. Chapter 3: The Framework
  • The article argues that “adding gamification” without selecting a genre is akin to “adding music” without referencing jazz or heavy metal: a category error that most product teams never realize they’re making.
  • It contends that different game genres are not just aesthetic choices; they are fundamentally different motivational architectures, and mapping your product to the wrong one is why most gamification fails.
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19 min read
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