World Usability Day Poznań 2018 - the Insight Into Gamification Workshops

Making Life Easier - The idea behind the World Usability Day

World Usability Day is a single day of events taking place worldwide that brings together communities of professional, industrial, educational, civic, and government groups for a common objective: to ensure that the services and products substantial to our lives are easier and easier to access and simpler to use.

It’s all about making our world a better place thanks to the user-centred design and user-friendly solutions. We - the users - don’t have to go along with product and services that don’t work well.

The main theme of World Usability Day in Poznań was: “For good and evil - UX Design”. We felt that we have a lot to say in this field, so we decided to reach the organisers with a proposition to conduct juicy workshops and… it worked!

Merixstudio contribution to World Usability Day in Poznań

Some time ago we started to work on Humanitrack - the crowd-based platform which aim is to attract people and communities that want to make human life better. It’s a universal hub from which we will be able to bring together people, ideas, resources, and news - all in an effort to collaborate, monitor, and push progress faster. Sounds like a fun, doesn't it?

For us - certainly! We were more than eager to share the experience that we gained while designing the gamification for this platform. But it’s not the end of the story. A quick idea came to us - why not to invite Humanitrack founders to join the workshops? We were convinced that their contribution to the event would give an added value to the participants. Luckily they agreed to pay us a visit. We couldn’t wait for November 17!

Website gamification - how to design it? UX Workshops conducted by Maria Borowy

The main aim of the workshops was to work on the mechanics of the Humanitrack platform. We were extremely curious about presenting the major assumptions of the project as well as finding ways to encourage users to return and keep them engaged on the Humanitrack website.

On the basis of forms completed before the event, Maria Borowy - our UX & Service Designer, who was the originator of the workshops, divided participants into two groups of six/seven: Superheroes and Free Spirits. The first team had a predefined theme for the gamification which was the world of superheroes and the second one, Free Spirit team could choose their own theme.

Maxwell and Thor from Humanitrack made a brief introduction to their world-changing project giving attendees a full background to tasks. So, what exactly the participants were supposed to do?

Firstly, they met Humanitrack personas, which were created before the workshop session, and matched them with different players types. The reason for that was to discover what kind of player types are the target for the gamification.

Secondly, they joined forces to discover motivators and rewards for each player type. Why? That’s simple - to find out the most appropriate solutions for the project.

In order to create a consistent background for the mechanisms used in gamification, they also worked on the story - the main theme for the gamification. When it was ready, they focused on the principles for the gamification project so that they could - finally - create the rules of the game. It was the final step in which the whole concept of the mechanisms and engagement functionalities was designed.

And then came time for presentations!

Refining Humanitrack project - the summary of workshops

Both groups had a lot of ideas. They pointed out that in the context of Humanitrack, the game should also move outside the website to the real world. For example, users can organize in groups and take actions together offline. Craving for details? Stay tuned for Humanitrack updates!

After the workshops, we attended the rest of the conference together with Maxwell and Thor. What a dose of user experience and UX design knowledge! Many thanks to World Usability Day in Poznań organisers - thank you guys for having us! And see you next year.

To conclude - it occurred that we all live in a world of superheroes. Not everybody knows that she or he is a hero. Humanitrack will help them discover their powers. That’s how we can change the world together.