Changing behaviour

In our two previous posts, we have been focusing on our thoughts regarding the design and choice of game mechanics for Cybercom; what to avoid and what to focus on. In this post however, we are going to rewind a bit and discuss another angle of why game mechanics are so effective in changing behaviour. Micheal Wu has presented a series of great articles on his blog where he explains gamification by connecting BJ Fogg's Behavioural Model with game mechanics. We're going to give a brief summery of his conclusions.

BJ Fogg's behavioural model (FBM)

Dr. BJ Fogg (Stanford University) has developed a behavioural model which describes three elements that are necessary for behavioural change to occur. These are Motivation, Ability and Trigger. The model is intended to serve as a guide for designers to identify what stops people from performing the behaviour that the designer intends. It is also an attempt to bring clarity and structure to the subject of behaviour which is fuzzy and overflowed with a fuzzy mass of theories. First we're going to give a very brief description of the three elements.

Motivation

There are tons of theories on what drives and motivates people. For the sake of understanding the model however, there is no need to dig deeper into where motivation comes from (even if it, of course, is important when designing a game). Motivation can basically be translated to someone’s willingness to perform an action.

Ability

In short, ability measures how much effort, or how much resistance one has to overcome, to perform a given action. It might mean that you need a certain skill but might also refer to the resources that are needed, such as time, money, etc. Fogg sometimes uses the term simplicity to describe this element. 

Trigger

Even if one has sufficient motivation and ability for a new behaviour to take place, it doesn't. Often a trigger is needed; something that says: now it's a great time to do this! A good trigger however, is not only a reminder but contains elements that increases ability or motivation and thus increases the chances of a behaviour to happen. For example, a trigger can be a message saying that you get something extra by doing the behaviour right now or include something that makes it easier to do (facebook's friend-finder function, which makes it easy to connect with friends with only one click, is a good example).

The three elements together

A central conclusion in the theory is that when the three elements occur at the same time the target person's behaviour will change, i.e. when motivation and ability is high enough and the behaviour is triggered. The line in the model (shown above) illustrates the activation threshold which marks the crossing which the person has to be above to be willing to change his or her behaviour. It clearly shows that if the motivation is low, ability must be high and vice versa.

Connecting the model with gamifcation

PhD Michael Wu at Lithium Technologies uses Fogg’s model to describe how game mechanics effectively can change a person’s behaviour. He compares games with social media which has proven very effective when it comes to creating new routines in people’s lives (how often do you log in to facebook?). They do so by playing on people’s motivation to connect with others, making it really easy to do so and by using triggers (facebook uses notifications, emails, etc.). In his comparison, Wu concludes that games are far superior to social media when it comes to changing someone’s behaviour since games offer various ways to increase all three elements, which can’t be done by social media alone.

“Well designed games are able to solve complementary (and relatively much harder) problems than social networks do. If used properly, gamification is able to drive long term engagement and persistent actions reliably.” (Micheal Wu)

The use of game mechanics is simply a great way to push a person over the activation threshold and is there for very effective. The gamification system that has been designed in this thesis serves as an example on how all three elements can be used; the game mechanics aim to increase motivation by doing the consultancy model more fun, to increase ability by illustrating the consultancy model in a clear way and by providing effective and timely triggers. 

We believe that these theories are important to keep in mind when designing game mechanics. One needs to balance motivation with ability, come up with smart triggers and have good timing with all the elements in order to create a greate gamified system!

To read more about Wu and Fogg's theories please see the following links:

http://www.behaviormodel.org/

http://lithosphere.lithium.com/t5/Building-Community-the-Platform/Gamification-from-a-Company-of-Pro-Gamers/ba-p/19258

Keep gaming!