Effective Gamification: A Guideline for Gamification Workshop of WEEF-GEDC 2021 Madrid Conference

Abstract

While implementing gamification in software applications might seem easy, there are many questions and doubts about it when it comes to execution. Engineers always ask where to start, what elements should be used, and how they should work. Despite the public's belief, gamification is not only points, levels, and leaderboards. It can implement in software applications delicately and smoothly, even without being noticed, while providing fascinating results. Meaningful and reward-based gamification are two well-known types of gamification. Meaningful gamification considers the intrinsic motivation of users and has a better user engagement in the long run. This article proposes effective gamification: an innovative approach that implements both meaningful and reward-based gamification and describes the building blocks of gamification from foundation to the most sophisticated ones. We explained how effective gamification depends on user engagement methods such as utility, interactivity, social networking, and personalization and how engineers can implement appropriate gamification elements to build effective gamification from scratch. Moreover, this article describes the literature and the guideline materials that we have prepared for tutoring in the gamification workshop at WEEF-GEDC 2021 Madrid conference.