Ch.11-CD.7: Game Techniques Within Unpredictability & Curiosity - Glowing Choice (28): You can apply this method with apps by placing a strong emphasis on a key feature that represents the Desired Action that users need to be guided towards. Many apps do this by having a question mark on top of the key feature, or an arrow that points directly to what they want their potential customers to focus on. The key to good design is to ensure that users don't need to think about committing the Desired Actions. In fact, users should have to think hard and decide not to take the Desired Action if they don't want to.

Social Influence idea: Perhaps every day users have an opportunity to "tip" Chou Coins to someone they appreciate in the community, with each Chou Coin becoming two coins when tipped (to a certain limit). Generosity takes a person further than self-consumption.

Start by defining the dashboard: At the beginning of every gamification campaign, the first thing I do is to define five items: 1) Business Metrics, which lead to Game Objective 2) Users, which lead to Players 3) Desired Actions, which lead to Win-States 4) Feedhack Mechanics, which lead to Triggers 5) Incentives, which lead to Rewards

Currently for Waze, the only reason why people would level up is to unlock new status avatars. For most users who aren't really hung up on their avatars, there isn't much to look forward to when gaining more experience points. Waze could solve this problem by building in unlockable features such as the carpool matching and flash mobs, where only users with higher levels could set up more interest filters, preferences, and get better access to these features.

Another idea with Core Drive 4 is to start showing cute graphics and charts that reflect the user's driving behaviors. Charts that reflect things like, "Did you know that you went to the gym 105 times this year and stayed there for a total of 5,775 minutes?" Or, "Did you know that you spent 9,422 minutes last year commuting to work?" These could really build more Core Drive 4 into the experience.

To improve Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment, Waze should consider making every arrival to the destination a bigger Win-State. Play a victorious tune, show a popup that excitedly shows, "You have arrived safely. Awesome!" Maybe even show the image of the location like some other navigation apps do so the user knows what to look out for. All this is much better than the bland GPS voice of "You have reached your destination."

We know that for Core Drive 3 to work, it needs quick "feedback" also, and feedback is often even stronger if it is mixed with Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness. What's emotionally rewarding about Waze, is that often, when you shared information with the community, you may receive a couple pop-ups that show people thanking you a few seconds later. When users seemingly get instant feedback from other, appreciative users, they feel delighted and are prone to share more in the future. After every Desired Action must come a delightful moment.