Gamification of Workplace Activities - Smart Information Systems: Computational Intelligence for Real-Life Applications - page 247

100 employees. However, since its introduction in 2009, the number of active users
reduced significantly. The main reason is probably usability flaws since the system
was never optimized with respect to user friendliness. Besides, changing staff led to
a slow oblivion of the system's existence.
9.3.2.2 Gamification Elements
In the context of this study, the existing systemwas carefully extendedwith threewell-
known and researched gamification elements— Points , Badges , and a Leaderboard
[ 23 ]. The three elements were chosen to cover different types of motivation and
Gamfication types. Rewards, with points and badges, for fulfilling different tasks,
and a competition element with the leaderboard. While the points reward direct
interaction with the system such as creating a new bookmark, badges are given for
completing longer term goals such as continuously creating new bookmarks in a
certain period of time. How to achieve points and badges is explained to the user by
detailed descriptions of which actions scorewhat points andwhat is needed to achieve
a badge. The leaderboard, accessible only after the user logged in, is integrated in
the main menu and within easy reach for the user. In the remainder of this section,
we introduce the applied gamification elements in detail.
Points : Almost every user interaction with the bookmarking system gives points,
including daily login (200 points), adding a public/private bookmark (100/25 points),
adding a bookmark with at least one tag (25 points), accepting a bookmark recom-
mendation (200 points) and many others. Figure 9.3 shows an overview of the actions
and the respective points.
Badges : In the gamified bookmarking system, we introducedfive different types of
badges. For getting points, creating bookmarks, loyalty (regular usage), and positive
recommendations. Figure 9.4 shows the badges used including the explanation of
what has to be done to achieve them.
Leaderboard : In the leaderboard (Fig. 9.5 ), users are ranked by points in decreas-
ing order. Besides, achieved badges are displayed to promote them further. The board
shows two rankings: the monthly leaderboard on the left-hand side which is auto-
matically reset every month and the all time leaderboard on the right-hand side.
This is done to avoid frustrating new users and to create a new challenge every
month.
Feedback : To ensure that the user is aware of points and badges, we integrated
a message system (Fig. 9.6 ). From the first log in, users get a small on-site popup
message, also called toast message. These messages appear every time a user gets
a reward by points or badges and if the user reaches a higher rank on the leader-
board. Moreover, the user gets a message when another user copied one of her book-
marks or accepted a bookmark recommendation. After 10 s, the messages disappear
automatically.