Motivation in UX/UI Design

We have a lot of different types of motivation. And we do not have one theory of motivation  that can explain all of human behaviors. So, let's just focus on two of the main  types of motivation that we care about. That is really useful especially in the  game industry but also elsewhere. It's *extrinsic motivation* and  *intrinsic motivation*. Extrinsic motivation is when you do  something, an activity or task, in order to gain something  external to that task.

So, let's say that you're doing a summer  job, not because you care about the job but because you need the money so that you can do whatever you want to do with the money. That's an example of extrinsic motivation. And in games we do have a lot of  that; we do have moments where you're going to do a mission, for example a  quest, not necessarily because you really  care about the quest; you don't necessarily  care about killing 10 wolves.

But you do need the pelts or the fur  or whatever, the fangs to craft  something that you need, and in the  game industry we do that a lot. We have a lot of *clear goals* that are  attached to *meaningful rewards*. Emphasis on *meaningful* – it's not  enough to just have goals and rewards and "if you do that, you're  going to gain this". What's interesting in a good game is  that you try to think really forward and say you – there's a very bad enemy

and you would like to defeat that enemy,  but you do not have the proper weapon that can help you defeat that  enemy because it's super strong. To gain that weapon you need to be able to craft  it because there's no other way to have it. And to craft it you need some ingredients,  and you're missing some of these ingredients, say, copper ore, and you cannot  it find anywhere in the game. And you will find a quest that is offering  you copper ore if you complete it.

That makes that reward meaningful because you  already know what you're going to do with it.  And that's really, really important because I see  like when we gamify things we have a tendency to add objectives and rewards with the  objectives and sometimes the rewards are just like badges and stuff like that. And  if you don't know what you're going to do with those badges, this is not a  meaningful reward. In games;  in a good game we always try to make sure  

that there is a problem, a challenge and something that needs to be solved.  We're blocked, and the reward is  a way to unlock the player. So, that makes it meaningful and that  makes it that you want to think forward and you know how you can accomplish your  goals and go through the different hoops. We also think about short term,  medium term and long term. You know, not just like the long-term goal  to save the world or finish the game, but you know there are like big bosses or  things that you want to accomplish, and

this is what makes the short-term goals –  you know – do one quest so that you can gain the ore so that you can craft the  things so then you can defeat the boss. That's what makes it really interesting. But extrinsic motivation is a good  drive, but it's not enough. We also need *intrinsic motivation*. Intrinsic  motivation is when we do something for the pleasure of doing it. We have a very good theory

to explain that. It's called  *self-determination theory*,   or *SDT* for short. It's very   reliable and has been studied for the past decades. This theory explains that we are more  intrinsically motivated to accomplish certain activities when these activities  satisfy our needs for competence,  autonomy and relatedness. *Competence* is having a sense of progression. So, whether it is at work, in a game, in your life  – like if you, let's say, learn a new skill,

like let's say you want to learn a new  language or a new music instrument, if every day that you practice you  feel that you're progressing, like now you can converse more easily or  you're able to play a song more easily, then you feel competent – your  efforts are paying off. It's really important to feel  that sense of competence because   if you put some efforts into something, a new activity, a new job, whatever it is   and you don't feel that you're progressing, then this is when you are really demotivated.

And the problem is again emphasis  on *feel of progressing*. Sometimes we do something like exercising  every day, and that's really helpful for our health, but we don't  necessarily feel it. And that's a problem in  health in general, is that people don't necessarily feel the benefit  of taking the medications every day or doing some exercise every day. And this is when having a device that is   helping you feel, making you feel this sense of progression, that can really help.

So, for example, if it's really  hard to exercise like 30 minutes every day to think about it, now  if you have a device that helps you say,   like your goal today is to do 10 000 steps and  show you your progression towards that goal, it's really more powerful because then you can  see yourself progressing towards that goal.   So... that's why progression bars are so  powerful, and it's not just because of the  

extrinsic motivation that comes with it  because you know once the bar is full, then you have a reward; it's also because  it's a great feedback on your progression, and especially on progression that you cannot  necessarily really feel for yourself, like anything health-related is a  good example, but then many times it's really hard to tell if  you're progressing or not. So, having a sense of progression is critical in  games; there's a lot of things that are around competence, and it's important to understand that  

the sense of progression, that feeling of competence,   it does not necessarily mean that you don't, you never die and you never fail; in games, we see that all the time, that  people actually persevere and if   they fail and they die and they start again – if   they are getting better next time, then you have a sense of progression. So, the idea is not to never have people fail,  and actually failing is very important for learning. But it's also very important to  feel competent; if you fail the first or the

second time but then you succeed, just like you  try to complete a level or to defeat a boss, it's really hard, but at some point you  overcome it and you manage to kill it, then you feel great, you feel a great sense  of accomplishment, that sense of competence because it was difficult and you  persevered and then you succeeded. And so, in games what's important is when  people fail and when they die in the game, it's really important that we convey *why* they  did and *how* they can get better next time.

So, failure is not necessarily a problem as  long as when people try again, they progress. So, that sense of progression is really  important; it's very important in your job, when you get a promotion, yes, you have  the external, the extrinsic reward of having more money that comes with it but it's  also a great feedback on your competence. And so, that's why it feels so good. Autonomy is a lot around self-expression, so it  can go from just choosing your environment,

so customizing your environment, all the way  to being creative and creating stuff yourself. There's a lot of nuances there, but  it's, again, at work if you have a boss that micromanages you, it doesn't feel  good, because you don't have autonomy; whereas if you have a boss that tells you,  "Okay, this is our objective for the month," then "Do what you have to do to get  there. I trust your judgments," then it feels much better because then you  feel you have autonomy to get there.

So, in games, of course there's a lot  of games that offer customizations, so you then smooth in Fortnite or you  choose your hats or your clothing or just customize your environment, but it's much more powerful when you can   choose your objectives, how to solve problems. So, in games that we call Sandbox,   like Grand Theft Auto, this is very powerful. It doesn't have to be violent to be powerful,  

but it's really like a Sandbox and you can try a lot of things,   that's really strong in autonomy. Or in a game like Minecraft, you also   can try a lot of things and you can also be creative and like just design what you want to   design; that's really strong autonomy. And last but not least, *relatedness*; we're a very social species; we would not have survived without each other, and so anytime we can have a  meaningful relationship and an activity,

that's going to make it more  intrinsically valuable. And so, there's a lot of focus on  competition, with, yes, it is a thing. But it's not as powerful as cooperation  actually, also especially for learning. And most games are cooperative; even  competitive games are oftentimes team-based, so you're cooperating within a team  and then competing against another team. So, a lot of games also are more popular  if they're multiplayer because of that

relatedness aspect, and now you can  see games like Roblox or Fortnite where it's just like hanging out  with friends, just dancing together,   watching a movie together. That's also relatedness. So, it's really, really important to think about  competence, autonomy, relatedness as they relate   to your product and how you can really put that emphasis for that to users. And some games have a good balance of  everything, like RPGs (Role-Playing Games).

You choose your role, so that's autonomy;  you're within a team, so that's relatedness, and hopefully you can accomplish  your role in the team. Like if you're the Healer, you have specific  tools to help so that you can heal your teammates on time and that's competence. But you have games like really super focused on one or two elements, like Minecraft is really, really the emphasis, like the power is really on autonomy. So, depending on what you're trying to  accomplish, try to think how you can

put forward competence, how people  are progressing, their autonomy; let them choose their path, their objectives,  or just let them customize their environments and relatedness, how can they play with friends or challenge others, their friends or cooperate  with them and help them out? So, and think about the extrinsic motivation  like the objectives and rewards and how they can support intrinsic  motivation. Like if they have a reward,

how does that reward make them more  competent or how does it make them having more autonomy? Maybe it's a reward that  helps them customize their environment. Or maybe it's a reward they can gift to  someone else, and that's relatedness.