6 Proven Gamification Techniques for Effective E-learning

Gamification – one of the hottest learning trends rocking the corporate training world. Companies across the world are formulating gamified online learning strategies to impart the required knowledge and skills to their workforce.

What makes gamification the preferred choice of organizations?

We thus see that gamification of e-learning helps impart engaging, high-quality training to your personnel. Let us now proceed to look at 6 proven tips to develop an effective gamified online learning resource.

Tip 1: Determine the success criteria

This is the first and inarguably the most important aspect you need to consider when you plan a gamified e-learning course. Identify the criteria based on which you will evaluate the efficacy of the gamified course. Will a 100% employee participation in the program be considered as measure of success? Or, does a 10% improvement in your bottom line indicate that the program has delivered results? Determining the success criteria for your gamified web-based resource helps you evaluate its effectiveness and tie the gamified learning initiative to tangible business goals.

Tip 2: Do not lose sight of the learning objectives

This is a very important aspect you need to keep in mind when you develop gamified e-learning courses. You need to remember that games which do not help realize the learning objectives serve no purpose. It is essential that the gamified online course helps your learners acquire the required knowledge and skills. For instance, if you develop a gamified online course to teach new patent law terminology to the personnel of your legal department, you need to ensure that the learners acquire a thorough understanding of the terms and do not focus merely on achieving the highest number of points.

Tip 3: Come up with a compelling story

A compelling storyline is the crux of an effective gamified e-learning strategy. Tell your learners why they are killing ogres, saving a princess, or hunting for a treasure. You need to remember that gamification yields the best results when it is created within a proper context. One of our courses, modeled on the popular TV show Who wants to become a millionaire, is based on the story of a person who needs money to build a house. By winning the game, the learner can “help” the needy person get the required financial resources to construct the house.

Tip 4: See that the challenge presented in the game is neither too simple nor too complex

Presentation of an appropriate challenge is a vital element of an effective online gamified learning design strategy. Make sure that the challenge you present in the game is neither very difficult nor a cakewalk. If the learning game is too simple for experts or too complex for novice learners, the objective of the course cannot be achieved. Learners may lose interest in the course and opt to quit. Therefore, it is very important to consider the abilities of your personnel when you design a web-based gamified learning resource.

Tip 5: Personalize competition

The element of competition in a gamified online course helps motivate learners to perform effectively to score the highest number of points. Make sure that you restrict the competition to a limited number of learners. Allow your staff members to choose their own competitor(s) and make sure the leaderboard is small – restricted to the department or territory in which the learners work, to make the competition meaningful. After all, you don’t want your learners to compete against the whole world. Do you?

Tip 6: Test each component of the gamified online course and test it well 

It is necessary to test each and every element of a gamified web-based course, before rolling the course out, to ensure smooth learning experiences. Unfortunately, many companies do not allot enough time and money for testing. It is a good idea to playtest the course on a pilot group of users, before launching it on the LMS. You will come across mistakes, cheats, and workarounds that you hardly imagined. Humans are highly creative and will find issues that you didn’t expect to arise. A playtest or two will reveal the issues and allow you to fix them before launching it throughout the organization.

Well-designed gamified e-learning courses help impart highly engaging, effective training to your workforce. Include the aspects listed above in your gamified training strategy to develop good online learning resources.