HOW TO: Properly Use Badges To Engage Customers

**Waqas** · August 19, 2011

Gabe Zichermann is the chair of the upcoming Gamification Summit NYC (9/15-16, 2011), where industry leaders will gather to share knowledge and insight. Zichermann is also an author, highly rated public speaker and entrepreneur whose book, â€œGamification by Designâ€ (Oâ€™Reilly, 2011) is the first to look at the technical and architectural considerations for designing engagement using game concepts.

Badges are among the most visible elements of gamification, the use of game-thinking and game mechanics to engage media audiences. A badge is one of many tools in an engagement design arsenal that also includes point systems, leaderboards, challenges, rewards, team play and achievement, among others.

However, social media badges are often maligned as boring or weak. This has been exacerbated by the decline of Foursquareâ€™s badging system. Many people have, therefore, concluded that badges are lame (what I call â€œbadgenfreudeâ€). In doing so, they miss the point entirely: Well-designed badge systems, like those used by the Boy Scouts or in the automotive industry, continue to remain robust because they follow a simple set of rules.

The four steps to badge nirvana can help you produce a stellar product, service and workplace:

Balance delight with aspirational, predictable achievement
Design for visual appeal
Leverage scarcity principles
Integrate tightly with a larger system

Regardless of your particular view of badges, understanding their potential may help you to build gamified engagement into your product or service. What follows are some of the most important design patterns, strengths and weaknesses of designing badges for gamification.

Badge Potential

Badges can perform a number of functions for gamified design, but mostly they are used to demonstrate consumer status and progress. Usually theyâ€™re either linear to the experience of the user (earned for 1, 5 or 20 check-ins) or orthagonal (earned for activities performed in the early morning, late night or at 30,000 feet). When used in the latter sense, badges are often designed to expose the player to a use of the product they wouldnâ€™t have otherwise imagined.

Delight vs. Structure

Badges exist on a pretext of structured challenge and unexpected delight. Beyond the progress indicators of Foursquare, badges provide the user with a slot machine-style reward for completing a specified activity. The systemâ€™s power is derived from its ability to motivate users to attain predictable and unpredictable rewards. On the downside, the Foursquare badging system is so central to the appâ€™s experience that it can quickly become tiresome once the initial enthusiasm wears off.

In Farmville, the badges (called ribbons) are designed to form a series of logical, ever-expanding challenges and achievements. They are stacked by activity, in order of increasing complexity. For example, you can earn one of four ribbons based on the number of friends in your network. A stacking system like Farmvilleâ€™s makes it easy for a user to follow the defined challenge/achievement pattern, but often leaves that person with few moments of delight and surprise. Whereas Foursquareâ€™s system is too freeform, Farmvilleâ€™s may be too structured.

Expressing Trust in Badges

Sometimes badges can provide a critical proxy for a trusted interaction that may be difficult to express — these are called reputational badges. ZocDoc, the popular online physician scheduling service, has a badging system highly capable both in simplicity and effect. Based on a performance scale of objective metrics, doctors are awarded a series of simple badges. The metrics measure a doctorâ€™s number of returning patients, speed of response and scheduling flexibility. While these factors donâ€™t attempt to qualify the doctorâ€™s performance as a physician, they do give patients a quick proxy of the doctorâ€™s systemic attitude, which many patients value highly.

Scarcity & Collectibility

Another oft-overlooked facet of badges is the psychology of collecting. Although we know surprisingly little about why people collect, we have become increasingly familiar with hoarding and attachment disorder. A couple of universal truisms about collecting are that everyone likes to collect different things at different times, and that scarcity, beauty and symmetry (or completion) play a big role in our desire to collect.

In order to make scarcity work, consider limiting the availability — or raising the bar — for some of the badges your site uses. GetGlue, a popular site for sharing feedback on media content, does a great job using scarce stickers as a form of badging, and has even managed to make some stickers highly collectible.

The System

Regardless of the design your badging system subscribes to, badges can be powerful tools for behavior change. On the other hand, itâ€™s important to consider them part of a system of gamification — not the whole experience. The key is to design an authentic, flexible and enduring game experience, and to pay close attention to both the motivation of the player and the visual design.

Sometimes youâ€™ll use badges to convey progress; others will demonstrate the contextual value of your app. Often users will earn them deliberately, and sometimes badges will greet participants by surprise. Regardless, they must be backed up by a coherent point system and paired with other mechanics such as leaderboards and challenges in order to create an complete and functional system.

What Not To Do

The Huffington Post gives us a good lesson in badging systems that offer minimal value, vying closely with Amazon for potentially least useful implementation. HuffPo rolled out a badging system in 2010 to some fanfare, as it was one of the first major media sites to use the technique. However, without a coherent point system, challenge arc or other context, the badges leave much to be desired. Furthermore, they donâ€™t appear to be substantially affecting behavior.

While I don’t think most users donâ€™t take their HuffPo badges seriously, Amazon has a different problem. The ecommerce giantâ€™s badges, which are given principally to commenters, are highly meaningful, but stem from a tiny, contextually flat visual design. Not to mention, they havenâ€™t changed in years. Both companies need to reconsider their engagement systems given todayâ€™s advanced gamification techniques. Principally, they must start by understanding user motivation and base their badging on a coherent point system.

In Conclusion

Badges can be powerful tools in oneâ€™s engagement arsenal. By following the four steps to badge nirvana, you can avoid the slapdash approach that undermines successful gamification. Most importantly, focus on the needs of your users and what drives them by creating a coherent system of engagement-focused interactions. Ensure your badges are attractive, collectible and meaningful to ensure that your consumers care. As in all development efforts, be sure to test and question every deployment that has a direct impact on your key metrics. Practice these steps, and youâ€™re sure to reach engagement enlightenment.

Images courtesy of nan palmero, Flickr, schatz

More About: design, game mechanics, gamification, social media, web

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