Gamification in (Web) Design is an ongoing set of articles about SEO, web design, social media and the psychology behind gamification. Written by a life-long gamer and designer, it will cover the ins and outs of current SEO trends and requirements along with their game-like nature, as well as the importance of social media. Lastly, it will review existing site design and social media integration and explore the path that lies ahead for the Social Internet.
It’s a funny thing, living in the current day as a life-long gamer.
On one hand, it did mean growing up being ostracised from some of my peers due to being a bit of a “nerd” who likes those “computer games”. On the other hand, however, it’s given me an insight into something that is on the rise – Gamification in Design. I wrote a post recently on this very blog, and made mention of SEO. As Webber Design now offers an SEO service, I’ve been looking more and more behind the scenes of this increasingly important element of web design. You know what I’ve found? It’s all a game.
Google, along with the other search engine giants, use robots (“spiders”) that crawl all over the internet, pulling up content and scanning through all of the words, images and so forth in order to feed it back to the engine, wherein a series of algorithms and methods rank your site, and then compares it against all sites deemed similar. Of course, not all of the process is entirely transparent and is not quite so simple, but in it’s most basic form it is literally pitting your website and it’s content against others in a fight for top-spot – A leaderboard, if you will – though quite unlike the leaderboards back in the day, where the goal was simply to beat the dreaded “AAA” at Dig-Dug. No, this leaderboard matters. If you aren’t on Page One of Google (or other search engines like Yahoo and Bing), then you will suffer for it.
Beyond the world of SEO, websites themselves are becoming increasingly driven towards videogame-like designs and systems. With the advent of social media, the internet stopped being about Content Providers and Users, and more about interaction. Genuine personal connectivity and user-generated content are what drives the internet of today (and quite likely tomorrow). Some could argue it’s simply a popularity contest, and they would be right, though it’s not quite as simple as that. Audience interaction is certainly down to the individual or company, but the services themselves want as many authentic users as possible. More users, more engagement, more time spent on sites, more content, more money. You can bet they know what they are doing (and believe me, they are doing it), and it’s only going to increase.
Over the next few weeks, I will be posting a set of blog posts on Gamification in (Web) Design, covering SEO and site ranking, web design and it’s UI gamification, and a future of the internet that has been secretly taken over by systems that originated in games.