Every week I write a thread on a new gamification technique and how it is/can be used in Web3. This week: Achievement Symbols (Technique #2)

This one is probably the most overused gamification techniques in the non-game realm. Every mobile app nowadays has a badge system for the smallest of actions.

This over-rewarding can be quite detrimental to the retention of your design — and can even be insulting to the user. Achievements should align with actions that took skill and effort to accomplish. Don’t over do it.

Effective achievements do a few things: 

— align with win-states 
— are combined with a visual/auditory cue
 — make the user feel unique and skillful 

I can still remember these big achievements in WoW — the visual and auditory cues have become engrained in the memory of many gamers.

What is a win-state?
This is when a user successfully moves through the desired user journey — and gets one step closer to solving their problem. Every win state should be reinforced with an incentive/reward in gamification design.

Effective Achievement Symbols are also paired with some other gamification techniques: 

• Status points, to show the progress made to the next goal

• Touting, share your achievement with friends 

• Boosting, grant the user a short period of power towards more desired actions

So how are achievement symbols used in Web 3 today? 

• POAPs are awarded to people that attend events, join communities early, etc. 

• Many DeFi platforms have achievement systems with tiered staking boosts 

• Discord badges for engaged community members

Good, but not great achievement systems.

So how can achievements be better utilized in Web3? 

• SBTs + Wallet messages can be built into a wallet to automate the achievement process and award the user according to parameters set by protocol layers like social graph/games. Thanks to ERC-4337, lots can be done here!

• Achievement system for community engagement in an NFT project that adds an additional trait to your NFT pfp — such as a badge or trophy. This also plays off of scarcity and social influence motivators.

In summary, 

• achievement symbols are great visual cues that the player has reached a milestone

• they are most effective when paired with other motivators and techniques

• don’t over do it! 

As Web3 produces more user facing apps, we will see more ecosystem wide achievements :)

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