http://blog.twproject.com/2009/05/13/usability-game-mechanics-teamwork/

[...] people use LinkedIn for goals external to the system as well (or actually, they do this mostly). I blogged about this a little bit a while ago. The conclusion is that you need to be careful which extrinsic goals to [...]

It’s funny to think that by making a user work to get something as basic as a help screen, a certain ideology indicates that this is actually beneficial to the user experience, as opposed to traditional thinking which implies that you want the help button to be as easy as possible to get to. Great read.

@Rahul: Lost Garden looks like a sweet resource. I agree with you that it might be hard to have a client explicitly sign off on game mechanics in a web app. (You could always just sneak it in…) I think a good angle might be the broader category of user experience, where if they (the client) agree that there is more to the use of the future app than just utilitarian aspects, you might be able to include elements that serve only to induce ‘pleasure’ (to avoid the f-word.)

@Hessel: Welcome! How do you like your MonsterID? ;-) I think we agree on the point that if we include game elements in a web app, they shouldn’t get in the way of the user simply getting something done. That would just be wrong. But I’ve found that there’s more to interaction design and information architecture than just simply supporting the user’s task in the most functional way possible. There is a whole experiential dimension where thing like pleasure of (I’m sorry) fun come into play. There’s an article on the blog Rahul mentioned that concludes with: “An acknowledgment (sic) of pleasure of doing is missing from modern interaction design.” In other words: when allowing the user to get things done, wouldn’t it be actually useful to offer a pleasurable experience as well? Finally, I think the special kind of fun games (and toys) offer is more interesting for interaction design than those offered by TV or film (basically because the latter aren’t strictly speaking interactive).

Completing you profile on linked in should be as easy as possible, the website should aid you on all fronts and make filling in those endless forms a breeze, not a challenge (one that you potentially would want to retry once you’ve completed it). Providing a progress bar obviously works, but I think thats more related to the fact that people just want to have/collect everything ( collect all 1995 baseball cards, own every Pixar DVD or, indeed, collect all hidden packages in GTA ). Or maybe just because incomplete progress bars are annoying ;)

So, please, if you want something to be fun don’t immediately refer to games. And if you must refer to some industry, just use the whole entertainment industry, there are loads and loads of valuable lessons to be learned from toys, tv-shows and movies as well. (ok, not exactly related to the article, but I just needed to get it off my chest ;)

LinkedIn’s profile completeness is something we have been advocating, however, even though it doesn’t really have much of a “risk” to counterbalance its rewards.

Nintendo Europe’s website has been using activity and participation rewards since its launch in 2002, by the way.