1. Applying Game Mechanics
Into User Interfaces
Leonardo Santagada, lsantagada@inf.ufrgs.br @santagada
Marcelo Pimenta, mpimenta@inf.ufrgs.br

2. Building fun applications is hard
• Not Reproducible
• No guidelines
• Very few literature about it

3. We are looking for a solution
• A reproducible way to make applications fun
to use
• What fun is

4. Usability is about
lowering friction

5. Fun is about
increasing motivation

6. UX is about
reasoning and evaluation

7. By using Game Mechanics
you can make apps fun

8. External Reward Systems
(Points and Badges)

9. Short feedback loop
User
Performs an
Action
Feedback is App.
Given Process Info

10. Exploratory Learning
• Guided by a reward system and a tight
feedback loop
• Users can learn on their own

11. Game Apps

12. YouTube

13. Stack Overflow

14. Stack Overflow

18. Testing the fun efficiency
• Testing for fun is complicated
• How many tests
• With the apps that exist?

19. Roadmap
• Design Tests
• Test
• Write Papers
• Write dissertation

20. Questions
?
Leonardo Santagada lsantagada@inf.ufrgs.br @santagada
Marcelo Pimenta mpimenta@inf.ufrgs.br