This gamification proposal was a project for my Gamification course through Coursera. The assignment was to craft a proposal for the gamification of a website for the fictional social sharing company ShareAll.

Design Document: Gamification Proposal for ShareAll

Define Business Objectives: Increase ShareAll Profits and Promote Sustainability

Gamification is a good business strategy for ShareAll because it can accomplish two major goals at once. We can increase company profits and encourage investors by expanding the existing user base, and by engaging existing users in a more interactive, proven way. Targeting user engagement and customer retention will increase revenue by more users purchasing and trading Shares.

Another goal to accomplish with gamification is to increase adoption of our system for social good and sustainability. ShareAll has a firm belief that their product is not only profitable, but a benefit to society as a whole. ShareAll can help to improve communities by sharing resources to reduce waste and unnecessary consumption. Gamification can encourage behavior change to inspire our users to share and borrow from others.

Delineate Target Behaviors: Four Targeted Behavior Categories

The main behaviors that ShareAll’s users will engage in are all about the use of Shares. ShareAll charges a small transaction fee whenever Shares are generated, traded, or spent. Therefore, the more activity, the more money ShareAll makes.

There are three categories of behaviors involving Shares that can be targeted with gamification. Users can either purchase shares for real money to use in the system, exchange their shares for goods and services, or earn new shares by offering goods and services of their own. These actions can be measured quantitatively by the number of shares moving between users, as well as the number of transactions themselves.

As a secondary goal of the gamified system is behavior change towards sustainability, there are  target behaviors to encourage in this fourth category as well. See the list below for an example (but not exhaustive) list of target behaviors:

Behavior Category	Behavior to Gamify
Purchase Shares	Buy Share Buy pack/bundle of Shares Set up credit card for auto-replenishment of Shares
Exchange Shares	Use Shares to hire another user for a service Use Shares to rent an item from another user Use Shares to purchase an item another user has for sale Post a Share Bounty for an item or service needed Swap item or service with another user
Earn Shares	Item rented by another user Item purchased by another user Service provided to another user Respond to a Share Bounty posted by another user Sign friends/neighbors up for ShareAll with referral code
Sustainability	List item for another user to rent List item for another user to buy Post listing for a service provided Refer friend/neighbor to ShareAll

Describe the Players: Who Uses ShareAll, and Why?

The players in this gamified system are the users of the ShareAll service – current, future, and even past. The current users are obvious – those who have an active account with ShareAll (have at least 1 Share in an account), which can be refined by metrics such as transaction volume, logins per week, age of account, and more as needed. The future users are those the gamified system hopes to target as well. To achieve revenue goals, ShareAll must increase the user base by having existing users recruit new users, and by targeted outreach and promotion to new users. Former ShareAll users may be attracted back to the service with an engaging new gamified system and a renewed enthusiasm from the existing user base.

As far as user demographics, most of ShareAll’s users are urban 18-35 year-olds, working professionals in the Millennial age group. They are active users of already popular collaborative consumption services such as Uber and Airbnb, as well as social media such as Facebook and Foursquare. They value just-in-time, on-demand services, frugal finds and discounts, and socializing with peers. These players will be engaged not just by the quick service, but by working with their friends and neighbors to save time and money.

The second largest user group is suburban mothers, age 29-45, who value the cost-saving benefits of sharing and exchanging goods and services, and who like to stay involved with their communities through school, church, and volunteer activities. The ShareAll service keeps them engaged looking for great deals and keeping in touch with others in the neighborhood.

For all target user groups, both cooperative and competitive elements could be useful for this system – the ShareAll service is by nature a collaborative, sharing, swapping one, but competition could be added to keep activity level high across all users.

Devise Activity Loops: Keeping Shares Moving

The most direct form of feedback this gamified system can provide is the earning of Shares. As the main objective is to increase the volume of Shares exchanged to increase ShareAll’s revenue, Shares are the primary feedback users will receive – the more Shares the users have available to them, the more they can use to buy and trade.

A secondary form of feedback will be a leaderboard, ranking the user among his or her immediate local neighbors. Keeping the leaderboard limited to local neighborhoods will both encourage participation among friends, and keep users lower on the leaderboard from getting discouraged by seeing many longtime users ranked far ahead of them.

This gamified system will use a series of engagement loops to keep users active in the ShareAll system, with an overall progression system to keep users engaged long term. Users will begin in an onboarding stage that will provide helpful hints to direct them through the actions of creating an account and starting to use the service. As users complete these introductory actions, a progress meter guides the user towards the goal of “moving into the neighborhood”. Upon completion of the onboarding level, users are granted a small number of Shares to get started in ShareAll.

Example Activity Loops for Onboarding Level

Level	Motivation	Action	Feedback
Onboarding	Start using ShareAll Find local area Social sharing Learn to use ShareAll	Register for account Fill out profile page Connect Facebook, etc Browse active listings	Sent to profile page Placed in neighborhood Ranked among friends Granted 5 Shares

Past the onboarding level, users will progress through the leaderboard at three levels, gained through various Share activity (see Target Behaviors section, above). Users will rank up in their own neighborhood with the frequent use of the ShareAll system to either buy, sell, or swap goods and services. Similar to the onboarding level, a progress bar will indicate movement towards a higher level. We can keep users engaged with various quests (write a review of the service received, respond to a Bounty for an item or service in demand in the neighborhood, sell items to players from 10 different streets, rate other users up or down) to earn additional Shares, so that those who don’t have the means to purchase a large number of shares outright can still earn extra rewards.

Alongside the user’s rank on the leaderboard for their neighborhood, you will also be able to find a third feedback mechanism, badges. Users can earn badges to display next to their name on their profile and neighborhood leaderboard that show off things like expertise in an area (posted 20 listing for services offered), unique collections (offered an item to rent from all 10 categories), or social connections (referred 5 neighbors to ShareAll), for example. Badges can also be earned for volume of transactions (exchanged 1,000 Shares) or quest completion (completed 5 quests). The leaderboard and badge systems can further be incentivized with contests and promotions to keep user activity and engagement high.

Don’t Forget the Fun: Community Benefits in ShareAll

While there is clear value to Shares in the ShareAll system, as they can be bought and sold for real currency, there is still fun in the gamified system that extends beyond financial rewards. First, the players gain social benefits from connecting with their neighbors and getting to know people who live nearby. Users are assigned an online community with its own leaderboard, item and service listings, and discussion area which becomes a social network for the community. Even without financial incentive, competing against friends for bragging rights or expertise can be highly motivating, and quests can help to make mundane buying, selling, and swapping into a more interactive and engaging activity.

Deploy the Appropriate Tools: Additional Considerations

Many of the tools used in the gamified system have been described at this point (Shares/points, levels, progress bars, leaderboards, badges, onboarding, quests, etc.), but it’s also important to consider deployment. As the gamified system will be built into the existing ShareAll website, current users would have to be notified and transitioned to the new system. Initial testing would need to be done, perhaps with a beta test of a small user group, to determine the scaling of activities and points that are required to reach the next level. Metrics are already collected on current Share activity among users, but additional measurements may need to be considered based on the types of quests and other activities designed. There is also potential to go beyond the ShareAll website and create a mobile app, so that users can find goods and services on-the-go, and still participate in the fun and rewards the gamified system can offer.