Here’s the Third & Final assignment I submitted for the Gamification MOOC on Coursera by Prof Kevin Werbach.
Gamification Written Assignment 1 – Definition : Cereals Incorporated
Gamification Written Assignment 2 – Motivation : Health of City Employees
Gamification Written Assignment 3 – Design Document : ShareAll collaborative Consumption
You are approached by Rashmi Horenstein, the CEO of ShareAll, a prominent company in the hot collaborative consumption space. (If you aren’t familiar with the concept, some good resources are CollaborativeConsumption.com and the March 9, 2013 cover story in the Economist.) She knows you are one of the top experts on gamification, which she has heard can revolutionize business. She asks you to present a proposal for a gamified system to take her business to the next level.
ShareAll’s mission is to make shared use of products and services as common as individual purchases. It follows the path of companies such as AirBnB, Buzzcar, and Uber, which allow sharing of particular products (cars, housing, etc). ShareAll’s patented technology makes it easy for consumers and business to share any product or service. ShareAll has also developed a global virtual currency, called Shares, which can be used to purchase access to any asset in the system. Shares can be exchanged for real money, and users can generate more Shares by sharing items or volunteering their time to complete tasks for others.
Image source : The Economist
ShareAll charges a small transaction fee whenever Shares are generated, traded, or spent. Therefore, the more activity, the more money ShareAll makes. Horenstein tells you that she cares about the social benefits of sustainability. However, ShareAll is a for-profit company, with investments and partnerships from some of the world’s largest corporations, so profits matter. Horenstein believes gamification could significantly help ShareAll’s business. She is eager to read your ideas.
Provide a detailed description of your proposal, organized according to the design framework described in the lectures in Unit 7:
1. Define business objectives
2. Delineate target behaviors
3. Describe your players
4. Devise activity loops
5. Don’t forget the fun!
6. Deploy the appropriate tools
My Submission for the assignment
1. Define business objectives
Gamification can help ShareAll in attaining the following business goals
a. Acquire New Users : Bring in new users and build community
b. Increase Repeat Users : Encourage users to share multiple products across categories .
c. To establish the TRUST among the users and make them brand ambassadors (Influence marketing & Social Sharing).
d. Increase Acceptance and redemption of SHARES (virtual Currency)
e. Build on the Social Responsibility element for the corporate and individual users by making them feel good about sharing for the good of society.
f. MAKE MONEY ☺
2. Delineate target behaviors
The larger business objective is to make money by increasing the usage and trade of SHARES. So, the gamified system will aim to generate following user behavior:
a. Increase Shares : The user will be motivated to do multiple share across categories. This will increase the supply of the services and products available on the platform.
b. Invite Friends & Build community: User will be rewarded for using social tools and inviting friends to expand the community on the platform. They will also be encourage and motivated to be the opinion leader and influencer in the category of their specialization.
c. Change habit & behavior to start Sharing the surplus for community use and accept SHARES as a mode of transaction in lieu of real currency.
Overall Analytics/Metrics : Monthly Growth in new users , Growth in listings (Shares), Average Shares/Users, Total Shares / Monthly & Daily Active Users (MAU, DAU) , Referral inbound traffic , % Increase in Revenue , Average Revenue / Share
3. Describe your players
I have classified Players with a mix of demographics, psycho-graphics and Bartle model. As collaborative consumption is a relatively new concept and proposed gamified solution will requires some kind of technological know-how & social networking, our primary target audiences will be the early adapters in age group 15-35 with high intrinsic motivation. Once we have an active participating community the age group can be extended to older age group.
Further we would like to bucket our players under these three categories :
a. Explorers (Just for Fun): These will be the early drivers for user acquisition and small shares. We expect users in age group 15-25 to use the service to share small items & weekend services to earn that extra buck or just for the fun of trying something new. These users will also help us in spreading awareness and increasing audience reach using sharing on social networks.
b. Achievers & Socializers (Recognition & Community) : These players in age group 25-30 will participate in the program for social recognition and peer pressure. But they can be the best brand ambassadors & social influencers for the ShareAll as they are socially active and will have some expertise or surplus to share. They will help us in meeting the business objective of building increasing usage and awareness about the services.
c. Socially Responsible: These users will participate not for money but for fulfilling a psychological need of contributing back to the society. The above 35 years old audience with enough resources (goods and skills) to be shared will constitute larger section of this audience. They can also be brand ambassadors and will help to establish the goodwill of the program.
4. Device Activity loop
Engagement Loop
Though the players or users as mentioned above will have different motivation level and triggers to do the first Activity of Share. The key is to get the user engaged at this point itself. Using the multiple game elements as described in section 6 below in my answer (TOOLS > Dynamics , Mechanics & Components) the gamified system will ensure that user experience is not only seamless but so pleasant and fun that user willingly shares it with friends and peer network. Another major constrain is building a peer to peer transactional network is trust so we will build game elements in feedback mechanism to make it more engaging. Beside getting the virtual rewards users will be able to build a reputation score with the feedback in a stackoverflow or quaora like model.
Progression Loop
Taking the user journey forward the user will progress towards the mastery. The user will start journey as a Newbie and will be progressing toward being the Category Leaders or Influencers by not only transacting and earning maximum SHARES but by the vitue of having the higher reputation points. On way to mastery user will keep unlocking levels of expertise like level 1 : 5 shares and 50 reputation points and level 5 being 500 shares and 5000 reputation points.
5. Don’t forget the fun
The gamified solution for ShareAll will have a right mix of fun from solving mysteries, Sharing & team work & some Hard and even serious fun where users will be motivated to take up task and challenges to go level up.
App Design: The app would be designed with animations and Graphics. Also an element of story-telling would build in to the app to keep the users engaged. The app will offer users various avatars (like Captain-Earth, Captain-Health, Green-Brigadier) and keep on motivating users to do more shares and earn virtual rewards.
Solving Puzzles & Mysteries : Users will be able to unlock Special Shares and badges by doing certain number of shares or doing activity on a specific day. This will be something like badges of foursquare where users are given hint to unlock a badge. Eg Super Sharer – a user who shares 5 or more items in a week.
Good Karma: The users will be able to donate the SHARES earned to the charity of their choice. So the users will not be participating or playing to earn money but for the feel good factor. They will be able to support a cause without actually spending money. Users can also form a team and donate a collective SHARES for a common cause. Say Support a child education so a group of known and unknown individuals can contribute SHARES which will help a CHILD to get educated.
6. Deploy the appropriate tools
DYNAMICS
Accessibility: The complete gamified experience for Shareall will be available on web and mobile devices using a website and an app. This will ensure that users have an easy and round the clock access to the system. Also the smartphones users will be able to find SHARES in the vicinity using map integration.
Narrative: The most important element and the biggest constrain for the success of the program is to increase the SHARE activity or infact generating the First share from every user. So the gamified interface will guide the user to identify the surplus goods or personal skill, which can be SHARED with community. A step-by-step guide to list the item to SHARE will follow the discovery of the share and subsequent progression
System Intelligence: The system will use the users demographics & other publically shared information, interests to suggest SHARES. Like a college student can be suggested to take tuitions. The system can with time gain intelligence and act as an commodity exchange where a travel enthusiast can be suggest a upcoming group trip for SHARES and he can be suggested to SHARE his apartment for the days he is out to earn SHARES.
MECHANICS
Dashboard : The app or web interface will have a dashboard of user activities, task, Wishlist, friends Shares, Social Leaderboard and earned SHARES. Most important a user will be able to maintain a list of goods that can be shared in future (Resources)
Feedback : A reassurance or a feedback system build into the gamified system will keep the user motivated for the next task. A user will be communicated the benefit or value of the share. Eg On a SHARE of a cycle for one hour, the person who share will get a message you just earned “X” shares from idle cycle and person who took cycle will get a message “Hey you just got healthier by X calories”.
COMPONENTS
Social Graph: An easy share options to social networks will be offered to users for every new shares or rewards earned by the users. This will help in scaling the business by inviting new user building a peer & friends network. A social leaderboard will also display your friends with max shares and a geo specific leaderboard can display most active users in your vicinity.
Quests /Rewards : Users will be offered a choice of exclusive rewards which will be available by reaching certain level or completing an Quest. Rewards can be unlocked by earning and spending “X” amount of SHARES. Users can maintain a wish-list and set a goal to earn enough SHARES to achieve it. A progression bar on the dashboard will keep the user updated on the remaing SHARES needed to reach desired level.This will keep user engaged in doing repeat activities thus generating more revenue for the company.
Badges & Avatars : Users will be able to unlock and display various badges and avatars on completion of various task and challenges. These badges will be displayed on user profiles and can also share the same on social networks. eg ShareKing Badge (for earning maximum SHARES), PowerSaver (Saving the Fuel by riding a Shared Bike). A user on completing a Quest of saving 1000 units of fuel will get an avatar of CAPTAIN EARTH.
Result : I got an effective grade of 10 out of 10 based on the peer-to-peer assessment.
Here is some of the feedback I received on what they like and what they don’t.
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