Motivation and Ease of Use

Understanding user goals is just as important as understanding business goals. In user-centered design, designers must capture and design for both.

The key components of Enterprise Playability are gamification and video-game-like usability. When designing an app with EP, a couple of important questions must be addressed early on: What should users be rewarded for? And which functionality should be playable? Two of the fundamentals of EP are:

  1. Make it easy for users to meet their own goals
  2. Reward users for meeting business goals

Understanding user goals is just as important as understanding business goals. In user-centered design, designers must capture and design for both.

Great video games are easy to play because they make it easy for users to understand what to do and how to do it. They keep users engaged by rewarding for meeting specific goals. Think of an arcade shooter: You pick up a gun and shoot at stuff. Fun! Easy to grock! Your simple user goals ("shoot stuff," "blow stuff up") are easy to achieve. Your score, however, is tied to shooting the right stuff, and also not shooting the old lady holding a bag of groceries. Those are the business goals, and you get points when you get them right.

In an enterprise app, core functionality should support the primary goals of the users, and make them easy to achieve . Rewards should motivate users to meet business goals. Think of a point of sale app. The user wants to inform customers, make sales, and get a big fat commission check. Management wants to sell more of the high-margin items, capture customer phone numbers for follow-up contact, and keep customers coming back.

So the easiest activities in the app should be:

Rewards should be for:

The end result is happy users who are excited about doing their best to meet business goals.