The document outlines 12 dimensions of motivational affordances that can be used in gameful design. The dimensions include intrinsic motivations like purpose, challenge, autonomy, and relatedness as well as extrinsic motivations like rewards, scarcity, and feedback. Each dimension contains 3-4 specific affordances that system designers can implement to satisfy users' psychological needs and drive motivation.

1. THE 12 DIMENSIONS
OF MOTIVATIONAL
AFFORDANCES
Gustavo F. Tondello
March 2017
Photo: Game Night by Randy Robertson (CC BY 2.0)

2. Gameful Design Heuristics

3. Motivational Affordances
Motivational affordances are properties added
to an object, which allow its users to
experience the satisfaction of their
psychological needs.1
In gameful design, motivational affordances
are often used to facilitate intrinsic and
extrinsic motivations.2
1 Sebastian Deterding. 2011. Situated motivational affordances of game elements: A
conceptual model. Gamification: Using Game Design Elements in Non-Gaming Contexts.
2 Gustavo F. Tondello, Dennis L. Kappen, Elisa D. Mekler, Marim Ganaba, and Lennart E.
Nacke. 2016. Heuristic Evaluation for Gameful Design. In Proceedings of the 2016 Annual
Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Extended Abstracts – CHI PLAY ’16.

4. Intrinsic Motivation
Satisfaction of psychological needs

5. Purpose and Meaning
Affordances aimed at helping users identify a meaningful goal
that will be achieved through the system and can benefit the
users themselves or other people.
Meaning
Helping the user identify a meaningful
contribution (to themselves or to others).
Information and Reflection
Providing information and opportunities for
reflection towards self-improvement.

6. Challenge and Competence
Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of
competence through accomplishing difficult challenges or goals.
Increasing Challenge
Offering challenges that grow with the user’s
skill.
Onboarding
Offering initial challenges for newcomers that
help them learn how it works.
Self-challenge
Helping the user discover or create new
challenges to test themselves.

7. Completeness and Mastery
Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of
competence by completing series of tasks or collecting virtual
achievements.
Progressive Goals
Always presenting next goals that the user
can pursue that are immediately achievable.
Achievement
Letting the user keep track of their
achievements or advancements.

8. Autonomy and Creativity
Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of
autonomy by offering meaningful choices and opportunities for
self-expression.
Choice
Providing the user with choices on what to do or how to
do something, which are interesting but also limited in
scope according to each user’s capacity.
Self-expression
Letting the user express themselves or create new
content.
Freedom
Letting the user experiment with new or different paths
without fear or serious consequences.

9. Relatedness
Affordances aimed at helping users satisfy their intrinsic need of
relatedness through social interaction, usually with other users.
Social Interaction
Letting the user connect and interact socially.
Social Cooperation
Letting users work together towards achieving common goals.
Social Competition
Letting users compare themselves with others or challenge other
users.
Fairness
Offering similar opportunities of success for everyone and means
for newcomers to feel motivated even when comparing themselves
with veterans.

10. Immersion
Affordances aimed at immersing users into the system to
improve their aesthetic experience, usually by means of a theme,
narrative, or story, which can be real or fictional.
Narrative
Offering users a meaningful narrative or
story with which they can relate to.
Perceived Fun
Letting the user interact with and be part of
the story (easy fun).

11. Extrinsic Motivation
Outcomes or values separated from the activity itself

12. Ownership and Rewards
Affordances aimed at motivating users through extrinsic rewards
or possession of real or virtual goods.
Ownership
Letting the user own virtual goods or build an individual
profile over time.
Rewards
Offering rewards for interaction and continued use, which
are valuable to users and proportional to the amount of
effort invested.
Virtual Economy
Letting users exchange the result of their efforts with in-
system or outside rewards.

13. Scarcity
Affordances aimed at motivating users through feelings of status
or exclusivity by means of acquisition of difficult or rare rewards,
goods, or achievements.
Status
Letting users work hard to show their status
to others.
Exclusivity
Offering interesting features or rewards that
are rare or difficult to obtain.

14. Loss Avoidance
Affordances aimed at leading users to act with urgency, by
creating situations in which they could lose acquired or potential
rewards, goods, or achievements if they do not act immediately.
Urgency
Creating urgency through possible losses
unless the user acts immediately.
Loss of Rewards
Letting the user loose anticipated of earned
rewards if they do not comply with the
system’s requirements.

15. Context Dependent
Type of motivation depends on contextual factors

16. Feedback
Affordances aimed at informing users of their progress and the
next available actions or challenges.
Clear and Immediate Feedback
Always informing the user immediately of any changes
or accomplishments in an easy and graspable way.
Actionable Feedback
Always informing the user about the next available
actions and improvements available.
Graspable Progress
Always telling the user where they stand and what is
the path ahead for progression.

17. Unpredictability
Affordances aimed at surprising users with variable tasks,
challenges, feedback, or rewards.
Varied Challenges
Offering unexpected variability in the
challenges or tasks presented to the user.
Varied Rewards
Offering unexpected variability in the
rewards that are offered to the user.

18. Change and Disruption
Affordances aimed at engaging users with disruptive tendencies
by allowing them to help improve the system, in a positive rather
than destructive way.
Innovation
Letting users contribute with ideas, content,
plugins, or modifications aimed at
improving, enhancing, or extending the
system itself.
Disruption Control
Protecting the system against cheating,
hacking, or other forms of manipulation
from users.

19. Gameful Design Heuristics

20. Using the Gameful Design
Heuristics
1. Familiarize yourself with the application
2. Use the heuristics checklist
3. For each heuristic:
a. Familiarize yourself with the heuristic
b. Think about the supporting questions in relation to
the app
c. If you identify any issue in the app related to the
heuristic, write it down
4. Finally, count the number of issues identified
for each category to identify those with more
issues

21. Gameful Design Heuristics
gamefuldesign.hcigames.com
Gustavo F. Tondello, Dennis L. Kappen, Elisa D. Mekler, Marim Ganaba,
and Lennart E. Nacke. 2016. Heuristic Evaluation for Gameful Design.
In Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human
Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts – CHI PLAY ’16.
ACM. doi:10.1145/2968120.2987729

22. Gameful Design Heuristics:
References
Yu-kai Chou. 2015. Actionable Gamification - Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards.
Octalysis Media.
Alt.: yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/octalysis-complete-gamification-framework/
Sebastian Deterding. 2015. The Lens of Intrinsic Skill Atoms: A Method for Gameful
Design. Human-Computer Interaction 30, 3-4: 294–335.
doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2014.993471
Dennis L. Kappen and Lennart E. Nacke. 2013. The Kaleidoscope of Effective
Gamification: Deconstructing Gamification in Business Applications. Proceedings of
Gamification 2013. ACM, 119–122. doi.org/10.1145/2583008.2583029
Andrzej Marczewski. 2015. User Types. In Even Ninja Monkeys Like to Play: Gamification,
Game Thinking & Motivational Design. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,
69–84. Alt.: www.gamified.uk/user-types/
Jane McGonigal. 2015. SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier,
Braver and More Resilient. Penguin Books.
Scott Nicholson. 2014. A RECIPE for Meaningful Gamification. In Gamification in
Education and Business, T. Reiners and L. C. Wood (eds.). Springer, 1–20.
doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10208-5

23. Photo: A Board Game by Karen Borter (CC BY-ND 2.0)