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Show HN: Gamification with Excel

15 points by kremlin 12y ago

kremlin 12y ago
I've been using this for about a year now; it occurred to me that others might like to use something similar if they don't already.
comrh 12y ago
Nice. It seems perfect for books or other tasks with predefined progress points. Hooking it up to Coursera would be pretty awesome as well.
ekianjo 12y ago
Sorry, but this article is just about displaying a "progress bar", it's not really about Gamification. In other words, Gamification is so much more than progress bars...
- Zikes 12y ago
  Gamification should have some sort of reward, though typically arbitrary like "leveling up" or "gold". One could suppose that a filled progress bar could serve the same purpose.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    I'm not saying that progress bars are not part of Gamification, but this article makes it seem that Gamification is only about progress bars.
    - Zikes 12y ago
      There is no rigid definition of what features a process should have before it can be considered gamification. It's largely about the experience and driving engagement, largely using game theory and UI design. Checking off a bunch of boxes in order to see a progress bar increase certainly sounds like it fits, even given an unfairly simplified description such as that.
      - ekianjo 12y ago
        Then just about everything is gamification, even ticking boxes on a tax form, if you go like that about it, or seeing your station close in on a subway map as you travel :) If we invented the term "gamification", it was to signify a little more than "nothing" in the first place.
- mherger 12y ago
  Gamification is about changing behaviors by allowing people to do that in a gameful way. LinkedIn uses a progressbar to nudge people into sharing more information. Some people get really into it to get the progressbar up to 100% and feel competitive. A progressbar caters towards the fun motivator "Achieving a sense of completion." So this examples points in a right direction, though you could make it a nudge more gameful, e.g. by using whimsical percentage titles (80% = Writing Hero) etc. BTW: if you want to learn more about progress bars as used in gamification, check out our Enterprise Gamification Wiki: http://www.enterprise-gamification.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Progress_bar http://www.enterprise-gamification.com/mediawiki/index.php?t...

15 points by kremlin 12y ago

I've been using this for about a year now; it occurred to me that others might like to use something similar if they don't already.

comrh 12y ago

Nice. It seems perfect for books or other tasks with predefined progress points. Hooking it up to Coursera would be pretty awesome as well.

ekianjo 12y ago

Sorry, but this article is just about displaying a "progress bar", it's not really about Gamification. In other words, Gamification is so much more than progress bars...

Zikes 12y ago
Gamification should have some sort of reward, though typically arbitrary like "leveling up" or "gold". One could suppose that a filled progress bar could serve the same purpose.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  I'm not saying that progress bars are not part of Gamification, but this article makes it seem that Gamification is only about progress bars.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    There is no rigid definition of what features a process should have before it can be considered gamification. It's largely about the experience and driving engagement, largely using game theory and UI design. Checking off a bunch of boxes in order to see a progress bar increase certainly sounds like it fits, even given an unfairly simplified description such as that.
    - ekianjo 12y ago
      Then just about everything is gamification, even ticking boxes on a tax form, if you go like that about it, or seeing your station close in on a subway map as you travel :) If we invented the term "gamification", it was to signify a little more than "nothing" in the first place.
mherger 12y ago
Gamification is about changing behaviors by allowing people to do that in a gameful way. LinkedIn uses a progressbar to nudge people into sharing more information. Some people get really into it to get the progressbar up to 100% and feel competitive. A progressbar caters towards the fun motivator "Achieving a sense of completion." So this examples points in a right direction, though you could make it a nudge more gameful, e.g. by using whimsical percentage titles (80% = Writing Hero) etc. BTW: if you want to learn more about progress bars as used in gamification, check out our Enterprise Gamification Wiki: http://www.enterprise-gamification.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Progress_bar http://www.enterprise-gamification.com/mediawiki/index.php?t...