turntable / as the table turns

I’m in the process of designing various user interfaces that deal with some tedious business tasks. I’m looking for ways to convert the pain and annoyance of these tasks into genuinely pleasurable experiences. Game play seems like an obvious approach. As I see it, there are three key elements of game play that really make games successful, fun, and addictive:

• They seduce you with a simple challenge
• The challenge leads to some type of discovery, giving you an intoxicating sense that you are skilled and clever
  
• The discovery is the reward, points are the proof of your mastery and status
  

At this stage, I’m more interested in studying classic puzzle and strategy games, rather than video games. It’s easy to get distracted by video games. Games that have survived the ages obviously have some enduring qualities. One game that I’m examing is Boggle, specifically this online version of Boggle. Sudoku is another game that I think could be useful to analyse.

Some keys to Boggle’s success that I find relevant include:

• It’s an itch you need to scratch. Fundamentally, the game premise is based on the human compulsion to sort, match, collect, complete, and compete. This pattern seems to apply with most games.
• It sucks you in, because you have an immediate sense that it’s easy to win. With Boggle, the answers are all right there in front of you.
• Discovering a winning strategy is fun. Once you get past the initial learning phase, the real fun is coming up with clever strategies to win more efficiently and effectively. I think this is even more critical to Sudoku’s success.
• Changing your view boosts your success. Simply rotating the game board suddenly gives you an injection of new possibilities. It ignites your imagination. Having a fresh new perspective on the same data dramatically helps you recognize patterns you never noticed before.

The online version of Boggle provides these additional payoffs:

• It provides realtime feedback with a running total. You get realtime feedback for the words you found, both correct and incorrect, plus the points per word, plus your running total. Every success fuels your desire for another.
• It inspires you to improve your technique and discover new solutions. At the end of the game, it shows you all the words you didn’t find. This helps you learn new strategies for finding words on the board, plus learn new words.
  
• It inspires you to stay competitive and get better. You see how well you scored compared to other players from around the world doing the same puzzle.

And the ultimate payoffs:

• It provides a sense of magic. There is magic in the way that the system responds to you in realtime as you interact with it. Magic is play in its purest form. We love to be dazzled with treats for the senses. Magic also captures our imagination by giving us a glimpse of new possibilities.
• It provides a sense of power. Letting people actually control the magic, seeing the immediate impact you have on the outcome, gives people a strong sense of power. Nothing is more addictive than power.

I think most videogames follow these same patterns. Of course, they ratchet it up with rich visual design, animation, hyper realism, role playing, and storytelling to appeal to the senses and emotions. Lot’s of games, video and otherwise, also use charm and humor (think Charades or Katamari).

How does this translate into a web based app? I see eBay and Trade Me as full on game systems: points are gained through money and reputation, you compete against other bidders, you devise winning strategies, there are time limits and leader boards, to name just a few parallels. People often get hooked more by the ‘game’ than the items for sale - people ‘win’ bids for items they don’t really want at prices they would never otherwise be willing to pay. AdWords, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Digg are other web apps that also have many game qualities.

I think the process for adding play and magic to a web app is:

• Make the screens seductively simple, with clear objectives and clear payoffs
• Show incremental progress in realtime
• Enable people to dynamically interact and affect the outcome
• Allow room for creativity - the ability for people to discover different approaches and solutions to the same problem

For further reading, I highly recommend reading 17 Game Design Principles.