This is my solution to the third and final assignment of the gamification course on Coursera. Posting now for posterity because the submission deadline is over so there aren’t concerns of plagiarism. Problem statement Solution: ShareAll: Platform for collaborative consumption. Get ‘shares’: the systems virtual currency for sharing goods or finishing tasks. Shares can be exchanged with real money or be used to obtain access to goods/resources in the ShareAll system.
(I) Define business objectives
ShareAll is a for profit company, so the here are business objectives that tie in it’s business goals with the goals of its collaborative consumption platform. Bottomline aligned business objectives: 1. Maximize adoption of platform by both users and businesses: The greater the no. of your friends or services that are available on the platform, the greater is the chance you’ll give the platform a try and and continue using it. 2. Optimize level of activity on ShareAll : Users need to share/exchange as much as possible without feeling fatigued in the using the system (eg: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/pew-most-facebook-users-take-break) 3. Maximize revenue: Because ShareAll is a for-profit, it needs to gain as much revenue as possible Platform aligned business objectives: 4. Make collaborative consumption fun: Collaborative consumption maybe a efficient way to use resources but people won’t do it unless they enjoy the process 5. Onboard effectively: Not everyone is comfortable sharing their house or car off the bat. ShareAll needs to onboard its users by effectively so that get used to the system (Eg: Come ride free for a week) 6. Build trust: This system involves a heavy amount of dealing with strangers. ShareAll needs to build user trust in the platform so that they can share to the maximum. Summarizing, gamification makes sense for this business problem because ShareAll needs to change user behaviour (#5) and use that changed behaviour to drive engagement in a sustainable and enjoyable manner (#2 & #4). Through gamification, we can also build a sense of trust/community (#6) so that people team up for solving problems just like they do in games.
(II) Delineate target behaviours
I’ve placed target behaviours into a 2 level hierarchy and outlined how we may measure each. Elementary activities: Create tasks, Complete tasks, Share more goods, Consume more goods
These are basic actions and can be measured directly. System-level activities: Spend time in building a reputation, Spend time in obtaining mastery, Socialize with each other. These can be measured via aggregating elementary activities and measuring their quantity and quality. Eg; If more than 70% of the stuff you share is rated ‘Good’, your reputation increases. Overall we’ll be tracking : (1) Quantity of activity: tasks created/closed, goods shared/consumed, DAU/MAU, number of business, etc. (2) Quality of activity: For this we can use metrics like avg. value of task (shares/task), avg. value of goods, fraction of experiences being rated as good or above, fraction of users with more than X amount of reputation, etc.
(III) Describe your players
Ideally everyone should be able to participate in ShareAll since it’s a platform where you can share anything but i’ll restrict the definition players to those who engage the most with platform. So players here would be individuals in the 18-55 age group, daily internet users with access to either a PC or a smartphone, people who are tech-savyy or have atleast one tech-savvy friend because engaging on this platform means regularly updating your activities and collaborating online. Income is no bar but typical players could be put into two categories (1) Goods oriented: People who have a house, car, etc. to share and want to share goods and reduce expenses . Typical income level >$20,000 (http://www.consumerfed.org/news/450) (2) Task-oriented: People who could possibly use the platform to complete tasks for other people and want to gain extra income.
(IV) Devise activity loops
Though this platform lends itself to a PBL type gamification framework, it important to design a framework that emphasizes reputation and sustained engagement, hence i propose the following: Onboarding loop: The platform will use a LinkedIn style “Collaborative Ninja” meter to onboard users and make them familiar with the ShareAll platform. This meter start at 0 and fill up to 100 as the users try different parts of the site . To ease users in, the site will prompt users for each new activity and allow users to create and complete trial tasks or share/consume some (fake) goods . Following through on the prompts will fill up the users meter, bonus points for exploring random stuff. Once users fill up the meter completely, they ‘unlock’ the whole site and are free to play around.
Mastery loops: Points: There will be points for engaging meaningfully with the system in any way i.e. points for basic activities like creating/completing tasks, sharing/consuming goods, completing a new kind of task, sharing a new kind good, etc. Points can be exchanged for shares and also be used to unlock additional features in the system. Feedback: Users receive feedback on activities they perform. Users can rate an experience on the site with ‘smiles’ and ‘frowns’; also after certain no. of interactions, you can rate the user itself . All this feedback affects the users reputation (See reputation meter below)
Levels: Users are show two level meters: an activity meter and a reputation meter. Activity meter: This one mainly tracks level of engagement at a basic level and goes from “dead” to “blazing” and also serves as a nudge to users to sustain engagement; it both increases and decreases based on activity. Reputation meter: The meter tracks quality and has levels from 1 to 5. Increasing levels of reputation unlock additional functionality. Reputation increases with good feedback and decreases with -ve feedback. (See feedback above) . This reputation meter helps build trust on the site.
(V) Don’t forget the fun
Fun in this system comes in multiple ways: Additional features: Points and activity streaks unlock additional features and can give you super powers Discounts/Offers: Businesses can offer incentives to people with enough reputation or points. Exportable reputation: You’re collaborating, you’re saving precious money from being spent on buying unnecessary goods and making the economy more efficient. You are also helping people through tasks completed and making them ‘smile’ . All this can be exported via badges and posts on social networks showing for eg. “Dalan saved $10,000 this year by collaboratively consuming on ShareAll”, etc.
Community: Users can form groups and engage in discussions in the forums. Groups allow people to communicate with each other and possibly make new friends because it is very likely that they’ll collaboratively consume with the same people again . They can also organize meetups and hangouts via their groups.
Initiatives & Challenges: Users can start ‘initiatives’ and invite their friends to participate in them. An example initiative would be “Car-pool January” . Similarly, users can create challenges for themselves and invite their friends to take them on. Challenges are tied to quantifiable goals, eg: “100 miles of Car-pooling by December” and completed challenges are displayed on users profiles and users can also share them on social networks.
Nudges: The system always pokes users to try sharing/doing new kinds of activities and rewards that with points. Random gifts: Users are encouraged to give small gifts to people who collaboratively consume with them. The system also may give you points or a gft randomly.
(VI) Deploy the appropriate tools
The workings of the system are largely described in the previous sections. Interface: Users can interact with ShareAll from either the website or via apps available on all platforms. The site has Home and Profile sections. Home shows users updates from their friend and collaborators, they can like and comment on those updates. The profile is a summary of the users activities and also contains nudges to do things. This would entail setting up a cloud based application that allows users to participate in such activities. The site would also require an artificial intelligence system (if you may) to find out patterns in a users behaviour, nudge them along new paths, suggest activities for them to achieve mastery/increase their level, etc.