Lots of people talk about game theory in marketing and services. Iain said some good things about it here. And then there’s Foursquare et al that reward small gestures with accolades.
I like to think of this stuff as micro-gratification. People don’t initially interact with entire things. They hear names, catch sound bytes, click buttons and read sentences. Each one of these actions has to reward the user in some way. That reward can be making them smile, making them think, or simply making them want more. It’s only after a few of these micro-rewards have occurred that people start having a relationship with the thing as a whole.
In the physical world, we’re used to more diffused gratification. We’re accustomed to trudging through our day, or week, only later to gather some sense of meaning from it. But digital interaction has taught us to expect a ‘treat’ for every small interaction. So next time you have a ‘big idea’, make sure it has lots of little rewards too.
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Update – watch from 1 minute in:
Hilarious and scary. Thanks Charles.
