Banking on Purpose: Aligning Apps with Users’ Intrinsic Goals
Intrinsic goals were found to include personal growth, health and wellness, developing stronger ties in one's relationships and with one's community, and other goals more directly aligned with the satisfaction of basic psychological needs.
Extrinsic goals included the pursuit of materialistic gain (such as wealth), physical appearance,Finally, for gamification efforts that are not solely commercial and seek to address significant areas such as education, health care, and well-being, the potential to scale effective gamification programs optimally to motivate and deepen learning and behavior change is genuinely exciting. But on the flip side, the possibility of undermining motivation through short-term motivational tactics is equally concerning. The gamification movement often holds itself out as having tremendous transformative promise. Let's ensure we do what we can to make that promise a reality over the long haul by focusing on motivation at the deeper level it deserves—a level that whenever possible puts at its center principles of intrinsic motivation, deepening motivational quality, and supporting the fundamental psychological needs of each individual.
Having covered basic psychological needs and their importance to motivation within gamification and added to that a discussion of motivational quality and the process of internalization of motivation in order to deepen engagement, next we discuss the final leg of a motivational triad for gamification: a discussion of user values/goals in and of themselves-and how the motivational literature shows that not all goals motivate and engage equally. (Walz & Deterding, 2015)
This book provides a very valuable insight into the online/app banking industry, highlighting methods that can be useful in the experience that users have. It gives an insight into how the tools of the app should be made to connect with the deeper motivational goals of the users, instead of a surface-level system of motivation. Gamification can be one of the many tools that may be used to motivate a user to consistently engage with an app; however, if done incorrectly it can lead to a short-term excitement that can quickly fizz out, meaning users are not actually achieving their meaningful goals, eventually limiting use of the product. If the product is able to frame the financial goals as more intrinsic motivation, it can create a deeper connection and engagement with these positive behaviors, meaning the users are more likely to continue with using the product.
The goal is not just to farm engagement with the users, instead reinforce the intrinsic goals of the users so they can have a greater sense of control over their finances.
References:
Walz, S. P., & Deterding, S. (Eds.). (2015). The gameful world: Approaches, issues, applications. MIT Press.
Ai was used in creating the title of the article
