Gamification and the Player Persona
The last article gave an overview of Player Centered Design gamification framework and this article goes over the Player Persona.
For a successful gamification project, the first step is to know the player. In user-centered, the user persona is used as a fictional representation of the user based on research and reflects the user's goals and behavior. By humanizing the research data, the designer is able to better empathize with the user while designing solutions. In player-centered design, the player persona created is a more enhanced persona that includes gamified elements.
When having a good understanding of the player, the designer will know how to implement gamification techniques that will successfully engage, motivate and delight them. The player persona is created from data collected that include personal objectives, experiences, aspirations, and demographics.
Understanding the player demographics is important in developing the player persona as it can have a lot of influence over the design. For example, men prefer a more competitive gaming environment and women prefer a more social, cooperative environment so understanding the majority gender is important. Similarly, people have different preferences based on their generation, so the age group should be known.
The player persona also contains the pain points and aspirations of the player, which are needed to determine the best design solutions. Gamification elements should help the player to overcome their pain points as well as achieve aspirations in order to be more successful. For example, gamification features may help the player accomplish more tedious, time-consuming tasks so they can focus their attention elsewhere.
Players also have different ways of approaching games. Richard Bartle created the Bartle Test of Psychology, which helps determine what motivates the player. Bartle’s gamer type puts players into four separate categories, which although most people will have traits from all categories, they will show dominant traits to a specific category:
- The achiever likes to progress and win points and status as well as display their achievements.
- The explorer likes to discover new things and unlock hidden features.
- The socializer likes interaction and playing games with other players,
- The killer likes gaining points and status but also wants to see other people lose.
I decided to create my own player persona template that would be incredibly useful in learning about the players and understanding how to design for them.
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