Comments on Your New Excuse to Get an Xbox

Alexander Wilms — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:53:17 GMT

Mia,
interesting idea, but something to follow up. Just my two cents here – although the industry is struggling to change the average gamer is young, male, computer-literate and with plenty of time to learn new features. In addition people spend their money on games. They made a conscious decison to use a particular game and the investment prevents them from just backing out – hence they are willing to invest time in learning how to use the user interface, same would apply to a new word processor or graphics program.
Web sites or web applications are different – they need to address all ages, states of computer literacy etc. In addition many websites will not play an important role in a users life, hence the user is not willing to spend much time in learning how to use them, especially if there are alternative offerings providing similar services.
I like the ideas of providing more help to the user, e.g. providing “dry runs” or using times when there is no user activity for giving additional tips. On the other hand surprising the user with new and unexpected features is no good idea when the task is complex or the content difficult to understand, e.g. in electronic forms. However maybe the Grim Reaper could be adopted by the tax department? ;-))

Paul Geronca — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:35:27 GMT

Insightful article. There is a great deal of contextual experience that can be transferred from the gaming environment into the typical set of online tasks. A considerable portion of this experience (not to mention a strong set of visual components) is derived from the culturally predominant platforms and applications presently on the market, like the Nintendo Wii or Spore or Guitar Hero or the DS. We would be remiss if we do not at least consider these new, relevant applications, especially if much of our audience finds themselves immersed within these experiences in their current day-to-day culture.

Tucker Williams — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:04:00 GMT

Like Jeff, I feel the richness of the game experience isn’t always suited to every implementation. However, going back a step into Game Theory – providing a reward, perhaps better stated as a “bonus” (since the reward could simply be the knowledge that’s acquired), for successful completion of a task is something we don’t do enough and it’s something that can be applied to quite a lot of instances when we take the time to evaluate them.

Jeff Seager — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:54:47 GMT

“Companies should create rich and immersive website experiences, drawing from some of the techniques for game design to build brand affinity and differentiate their sites.”
I have trouble with “should” statements, unless the mandate is so clear as to be unarguable. This one is dubious.
When an immersive experience is needed, go for it! But in many cases, a company will benefit greatly from simply getting to the point. The point of this article supports an earlier model of the Web that insisted on measuring the success of a website by the amount of time spent there. More time may in fact mean the user is “stuck” and confused about what she needs to do to get what she wants.
A better measure is this: Did the user get what he wanted? Was the transaction profitable for all concerned? A game is not a good model for information access or commerce.
Also consider accessibility, which is a requirement for many government websites and a darned good idea for many others. Rich, immersive experiences are fine when progressive enhancement is practiced in their development, but many many people are unfamiliar with progressive enhancement techniques. That locks out a large number of people, when you figure the global impact, and in the long run it’s altogether a bad thing to encourage rich immersive experiences for their own sake.

Mia Northrop — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:03:15 GMT

Thanks Benson, Jason and John.

You raise great points. Realizing that many tasks online can be conceptualised as games as well as thinking how a game aesthetic could apply to a site are two of the biggest opportunities before us.

Another challenge is for non-gamer designers to get out of their comfort zone and actually spend some time playing, so that they’re open to these insights.

I’ll have to add Spore to the list of games to check out. That endless list..

John Ferrara — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:18:30 GMT

A really fantastic article Mia, and I’m so excited to see discussion of what I think is inescapably a part of the future of user experience design. There’s so much creative UI work happening in games that the typical IA would be remiss if she didn’t get that Xbox.

I would add too that many mundane user tasks can be understood as games, even if we’re not accustomed to thinking of them that way. The critical breakthrough in thinking is that these tasks can benefit from being experienced as games.

One of my favorite examples is fold.it, which is a puzzle game (in the same genre as Tetris and Bejeweled) that challenges users to find the best ways to fold protein chains. Points are awarded for reducing its size efficiently and positioning hydrophobic amino acids inside the chain—all through a game front end. And you’re doing real work in biological science, figuring out combinations that are difficult for computers to derive, all for a high score.

So beyond aesthetics and conventions, I’d suggest that “game think” can sometimes mean adopting the game form itself as the user experience.

Jason Pryslak — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:47:21 GMT

This is one of the meatiest articles i’ve seen on the subject! Your examples are really great. The conversational execution of the Bond site reminds me of hours and hours of playing games like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A compelling story (even the simplest one) can really suck you into an experience. Video games have been trying build compelling stories and experiences for a long time and the connection to the digital marketing world should never be overlooked.

Another way to look at this could be to assess one’s site with a lens of “would this be a compelling video game?”. Static pages of marketing text would look pretty dull from that perspective.

Benson Low — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:51:55 GMT

Great article. Having worked a few years in the game industry really pushes the limits of poor (90%) to great (10%) user interfaces. I was all the better because of this. I would just like to add another case, Spore’s Creature Creation UI is exceptional. It’s just such a rewarding process.