by Yu-kai Chou
Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment. Instead of being ambiguous about whether the driver hit the Win-State or not, the Speed Camera Lottery displays an obvious green thumbs up when drivers achieve the Win-State, and a red thumbs down when drivers fail to achieve the Win-State. This was further reinforced by displaying speeds at or below the limit in green, and displaying speeds in excess of the limit in red. This instant feedback mechanism allows the user to intuitively feel more successful and accomplished when achieving the Win-State.
Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness. In the viral Youtube video that showcases the Speed Camera Lottery299, we see that the Speed Camera Lottery is implemented on a busy street with lots of other drivers and passengers nearby. Beyond just the desire to do well and win some money, the driver would recognize that everyone around could see whether they get a thumbs up or thumbs down. Even though the majority of the audience are mere strangers, we naturally don’t like others to see us as “thumbs-down losers” that are disobeying the law. We would much prefer others to see that we are law-abiding citizens that are getting green thumbs-ups.
With four additional Core Drives designed into the experience, the Speed Camera Lottery was able to reduce the average speed of passing drivers by over 20% during their pilot run. Even though the Speed Camera Lottery isn’t the end-all be-all solution due to a lack of Endgame design, we can see that by applying Octalysis and the 8 Core Drives to an existing problem, we are able to innovate and design new experiences that reinforce desired behaviors.
If there is one thing I want my readers to get out of this book, it is to constantly think about motivation and the 8 Core Drives instead of features, functions, and systems. When you start off with Human-Focused Design as opposed to Function-Focused Design, I’m confident that whatever you design will come out to be more appealing, more enjoyable, and more successful.
Octalysis of the Waze Navigation App
Beyond just a high level Octalysis overview of an experience, we can also analyze the experience separately throughout the 4 Experience Phases of a Player’s Journey: Discovery, Onboarding, Scaffolding, and Endgame.
Somewhat inline with the Speed Camera Lottery, another sector in “gamified driving” is the navigation app Waze. As mentioned in Chapter 5, Waze is an immensely popular GPS app that is changing how we navigate traffic through crowdsourcing real-time traffic and road condition data. Often receiving an average five star rating by tens of thousands of users, its fans have taken the mundane experience of driving and turned it into an enjoyably immersive adventure with a rewarding social experience.
Let’s take a deeper look into how Waze accomplishes this by applying Octalysis to its design and mechanics.
Most navigation systems simply provide directions as a means to an end (Function-Focused). They mostly motivate us through two Core Drives:
Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment. Users continue to see progress towards the destination and feel very competent when they reach the Win-State efficiently.
Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance. Users avoid the frustrating experience of getting lost or feeling confused.
But all navigation systems fulfill these two Core Drives, with some doing it better than others. As a new entrant into the industry, Waze needed to incorporate more Core Drives into their experience in order to create differentiating success.
Waze does this by enabling social components to create localized communities of drivers. While the company owns the map rights, the actual navigational system is driven by crowdsourced user data as drivers constantly contribute updates. These updates include road conditions, debris, traffic, presence of cops, and other specific details that are helpful to drivers using the app. This is somewhat akin to the spirit behind Wikipedia’s community participation.
Waze’s objective isn’t just to provide people directions. They want to create pleasant and fun driving experiences that bring more enjoyment to their users’ daily commutes.
Let’s dive into how Waze appeals to the 8 Core Drives throughout the 4 Experience Phases.
Discovery Phase experience for Waze
The Discovery Phase is where users decide to start trying out a certain experience. Many other gamification/game design frameworks define their first phase as Onboarding or Identity300, which begins when users sign up to an experience. However, I believe that the user experience of a service does not start when people sign up to the service, but when they first hear about it. How they hear about it, in what context, motivated by what Core Drives will all affect how users behave during the Onboarding and Scaffolding Phase. As a result, we want to carefully analyze and craft the Discovery Experience of any service we are designing.
Many people discover the Waze app because of a mild form of Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity. They heard about it somewhere, read about it through online media sites, or just stumbled upon it in the app store. Waze attracts users by displaying cute graphics and bringing out people’s curiosity in being a user-generated navigation app. Since most GPS apps are centrally programmed and look overly serious, this prompts user curiosity, “Hmm! A user-generated GPS? How does that work?” The novel concept itself attracts people to become interested in trying out the experience.
Furthermore, Waze utilizes a strong sense of Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness. Because of the community ethos it has throughout the experience, the app encourages many users during Scaffolding and the Endgame to tell their friends about it. Prospective users are also heavily influenced by reviews and ratings from other users, which we know by now, heavily motivates Desired Actions due to the Conformity Anchor discussed in Chapter 9.
Along the two Core Drives that every navigation system has (2 and 8), there aren’t many other Core Drives that are embedded in the Discovery Phase, so lets move on to examining the Onboarding Phase.
Onboarding Phase experience for Waze
Onboarding starts after users decide to give the experience a try and download the app.
I mentioned in Chapter 5 that one of the very impressive things Waze does is to bring in Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling during the Onboarding Experience. Instead of taking up a lot of time with text or video narratives, early versions of Waze simply show an Onboarding graphic of Traffic - a huge snake monster consisting of a road with cars stuck on it - combating many cute and brave knight Wazers. Below, it displays the tagline “Beat Traffic, Together.” This demonstrates that when users are driving with Waze, they are not just commuting to their destinations, but are actually helping an entire community of brave Wazers fight Traffic, which of course is something everyone hates.
The app then quickly demonstrates Feedback Mechanics that show “363 Wazers nearby” which is a display of Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness. The user needs to quickly know that this app is popular and there is activity within the app. She can also see cute icons of other drivers, some with crowns, others with helmets, and others have baby sucklers. This installs some Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity along with some Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience. “Hmm, I wonder how I can make my car avatar to look different.”
Of course, the user is not likely to explore all the avatar settings the first time using the app, but instead will likely try to go somewhere with Waze. With big and round buttons and a clear navigation, Waze makes sure there is an element of Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment. This means that users feel smart and competent whenever they are interacting with the interface and searching for a new address. Remember: during the Onboarding Phase, it is critical to make users feel smart and not overwhelm them with too many features and functionalities, a mistake by many large corporations and startups alike.
Waze also allows users to accumulate Status Points while driving, appealing to Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession, which is further enhanced by the personified car avatars. Even though users are shown unlockable avatars as they accumulate more points and level up (a Dangling element in Core Drive 6), I
personally don’t feel that it heavily motivates user behavior and is a bit more on the gimmicky side until later on in the Scaffolding phase.
At this point, the user probably isn’t in the mood to contribute data, modify the map, and share road conditions to others. However, the experience thus far has been smooth and intriguing enough that many users would be open to move forward and move into the Scaffolding Phase.
Scaffolding Phase experience for Waze
The Scaffolding Phase is the regular journey of the user throughout the experience. Interestingly, this normally involves a repeated set of actions on a daily or weekly basis. Within Waze, once the user has a basic sense of how to navigate the system, they are driven to dive in further, explore, contribute, and achieve more until it becomes a daily habit.
As Waze properly functions, Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment kicks in even more as it navigates drivers through heavy traffic and takes them on little side roads that bypass dozens of cars stuck on the highway. This makes users feel smart and accomplished utilizing information that other people don’t have access to in order to maneuver in traffic better.
Another key Core Drive that starts to build up more during Scaffolding is Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession. As the user drives with Waze, it collects specific data about their habits and driving behavior. Thus the app is able to form a deep and individualized understanding of a user and customize their experience.
As an example of the Alfred Effect discussed in Chapter 9, Waze might ask the driver, “would you like to go to work now?” because it knows that the driver goes to work at 8:30 AM on weekdays. But at 8 PM on a Wednesday, Waze might ask, “Would you like to go to the gym?” because it knows that Wednesday nights are gym nights for this user. The personalized “Alfred Effect” motivates users to stay engaged and loyal with the app, even if other more advanced technologies come out. The user prefers to stick to the system that knows them over ones that are smarter.
Another powerful Core Drive within Waze during the Scaffolding Phase is Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity. When a user is alerted about a disabled car stuck on the roadside, their minds suddenly become engaged. “Will it be there? Will it be there?” This is what I call the Oracle Effect (Game Technique #71), where a prediction about the future causes the user to become fully engaged to see whether the “prophecy” will become true or not. Often users will stay focused until voila!, they see the incapacitated car stuck on the shoulder - the prophecy is fulfilled! Even when the car isn’t there, the user would think, “Bummer. Maybe next time I’ll get to witness the alerted incident.” When you pull the lever on a slot machine, sometimes you win, and sometimes you don’t. That type of curiosity adds an extra layer of fun within the Waze’s experience.
At one point, after continuously seeing and benefiting from reliable information contributed by others, users also start to think about exercising their Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback. Suddenly, the user is starting to share some of their own road information, tapping on a few large icons while driving to share that there was a policeman hiding at the bottom of a steep slope. (Note: this is not necessarily safe.) This gives users a “sense of agency” as they feel empowered to contribute what they want into the pool of helpful data.
We know that for Core Drive 3 to work, it needs quick “feedback” also, and feedback is often even stronger if it is mixed with Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness. What’s emotionally rewarding about Waze, is that often, when you shared information with the community, you may receive a couple pop-ups that show people thanking you a few seconds later. (Again, this is not necessarily safe for either sharer or thanker; a gamification designer needs to think heavily about the ramifications of their designs). When users seemingly get instant feedback from other, appreciative users, they feel delighted and are prone to share more in the future. After every Desired Action must come a delightful moment.
Of course, there are still some Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience designs in the system, as the app still dangles a path to mastery towards becoming “Waze Royalty.” However, since the unlocked reward does not grant users more useful powers or actually represent an impressive status to others, from my observations, it does not heavily alter user behavior.
With Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance, people hate overpaying for commodities such as gas, beer, or groceries, so navigation services could really help people avoid overpaying by routing them to the least expensive locations along their way. In addition, when a person is trying to search for a restaurant “on the way” to a destination, most navigation apps show locations or detours that are really out of the way.
Waze allows users to avoid these pains by showing cheaper gas stations and shorter detours as users head towards their destinations. It even tells the user how long the detour is from the original route before the user commits to any location. This eventually leads to more Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment as people feel smart about not wasting much time or money in finding gas or a place to eat.
The Endgame Phase of Waze
The Endgame Phase starts when the user has been going through the activity loops for a long period of time and has done everything there is to do within their own perceptions. This is when we evaluate why they would still want to remain in the system and commit to more Desired Actions.
Luckily for Waze, the navigation functionality itself is a useful purpose that many people need on a daily basis. As such, people can’t quit easily like they do with games. However, without diligent design, there may still be nothing that stops the user from migrating to other navigation services that offer similar Function-Focused benefits. This is where good Endgame design becomes very important.
During the Endgame, hardcore users who have been involved for a long time start taking more pride in being part of the community, which strengthens the Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling. As we know, the Alfred Effect within Core Drive 4 continues to grow, which also builds up Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance as users don’t want to leave and lose the acquired system intelligence as well as the saved addresses and “favorites” in the system.
Also, at this stage, some Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity can be utilized as people begin to actually use the available online map editor to update the map and make improvements. Of course, since the physical world is metaphorically “set in stone,” there is still a limited amount of creativity that can be derived this process. Furthermore, there are only so many ways to say “there is a piece of trash or a police car here” (anything beyond the simplest ways would be too dangerous for driving), so Core Drive 3 is still very limited for a veteran user.
On the other hand, As long as Waze continues to offer faster routes than other competitors, Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment will likely remain strong in the Endgame. However, many other navigation apps are all touting that they are equally smart or smarter at finding faster routes to beat traffic. Regardless if that’s accurate or not, the perception of that possibility along with some Black Hat Discovery Phase design, could quickly snatch users away from Waze if they depended on this alone.
Regarding Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness, even though the light social interactions within Waze remain fun in the endgame, the depth of interactivity and relationships don’t necessarily expand. As people are driving, every friendship interaction is based on light touches, with people occasionally sending you Social Prods in the form of “Beep-Beeps” or a quick message. The level of friendship does not necessarily expand or become more meaningful through Waze.
Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience as well as Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity are also diminished, since the user has unlocked the high level avatars and the novelty factor (including the Oracle Effect since it has little variation) would likely have been reduced. This means that Waze does not have much Black Hat motivation within the Endgame Phase. Of course, the avatar levels in Waze are “percentile-based,” which means you could
lose your avatar status if you stopped using Waze while others diligently catch up. This means that there is still motivation to drive forward when a veteran user drops a rank after sluggish usage. Here we see that another potential side-effect of this gamified design may be that people would drive more with Waze on just to keep their ranks, even though it may not be necessary to drive in the first place. This may unintentionally impact the environment in a negative way.
From the analysis above, we can see that the Endgame experience of Waze is mostly focused on Core Drives 1, 2, 3, 4, and some 8. This is not necessarily bad, as we know the White Hat Core Drives stimulate longer engagement. As long as people are enjoying the experience, it is fine to have fewer Black Hat Core Drive designs. However, Waze’s longer term success will depend on how well they appeal to Core Drive 2 - do users really feel smarter using Waze compared to other navigations apps - and Core Drive 3 - are there more ways to utilize creativity and see feedback without jeopardizing safe driving. Of course, if Waze can expand on Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness within their Endgame design, that would make it an even more compelling experience.
The Next Step: Identify Potential Improvements for Waze
Once we have analyzed the progressive experience of Waze, the next step is to come up with new creative ideas to enhance those 8 Core Drives. For simplicity sake, we will just go through a simple ten-minute Level I Octalysis brainstorm, which would be very instructive, but by no means exhaustive. For disclaimer sake, as of this writing, I have never worked with Waze before so this is not real consulting advice but simply a form of amusing brainstorming using the Octalysis Framework.