Designing Apps With a Point System, Observing CSP's Clippy

Minding my digital illustration work and a new point system appears.

Fluency of design choices in games and user experience is growing. Early in my career when I talked with collaborators about adding points and other game elements to an application it didn't land well with most because there weren't a lot of examples of point systems outside of games. Then around 2012 adding points, badges, and other game related mechanisms became a frequent discussion.

Now there's a point system inside my current favorite digital drawing tool, Clip Studio Paint.

Remodels tell a story.

New features in apps, especially when they're part of what you see right away when you launch it remind me of going to a remodeled store. It's different as a place, yet I feel like the same person with the same feelings, skills, and goals for why I'm there. I probably get in this mind space because I care about design and noticing others design choices is one way to keep learning about design. Is this newly remodeled space helping me? What else is here and how is it affecting me? This is when you notice how it's easier to get a shopping basket or possibly more difficult to know where to go next. Those moments are when I gather observations and questions and the learning feels like a gift. That gift can offset or sit along side being confused or annoyed. It's all part of experiencing the space of someone's design choices.

Click this tomorrow.

It was late 2019 or early 2020 when I noticed Clip Studio Paint's launcher app called Clip Studio was doing little animated flourishes to get my attention. One of those flourishes was a reward for opening the app. I noticed it was also a recurring reward, promising to give me more points when I open the app and click on that button again if I come back the next day. When someone wants me to come back to click I think about Ian Bogost's Cow Clicker, which he created as a satire on the whole idea yet it became popular.

Point systems recognize behaviors. I was curious what CSP was up to so I played along. Wondering along the way: what does CSP want in this exchange? They're rewarding my behavior of coming back and clicking a button, but why? Returning to the app shows a kind of engagement sure. Do the points mean something more? Positive reinforcement, for what end?

Points as more than recognition.

Then along the way, they announced that these points will be used in their marketplace. A point system becomes a currency when you can exchange points for something. By rewarding returning to CSP, to notice and care about points, to accumulate enough points that have value in a marketplace to then participate in the marketplace.

I took a few screen grabs and jotted notes as I do out of habit when I'm thinking about others design choices. Planned on sharing a few observations about it all at some point. CSP sent an email recently mentioning my points were about to expire. That's a different mechanism being added to the design choices: negative reinforcement that points go away.

This isn't where I surprise you with a hot take. I have a few more thoughts for context and food for thought if you're liking thinking about point systems. Especially if you're considering point systems as a solution for something in your world.

Points as recognition and as currency are not a trivial thing to add. Whether it's for a business overall, a product on the shelf, a digital experience or combination: points are a whole system of choices and affects. In my career so far I've used points in game design, for learning systems, and app experiences. As part of a few interactive projects, some based on learning, others based on sales plus learning, and another based on shopping by virtual window browsing, I've had some practice outside game development with point systems design.

When you're choosing to add points, they will affect your audience and they will affect you.

Your audience will have a new thing to learn, to react to, and potentially new reasons to connect with what you make. Also potentially new reasons to disconnect with what you make. Points on their own do this because now you're scoring people. Points as currency add even more systems for your audience, how do they feel about the value, fairness, the outcomes of exchanges of points for other stuff.

All of those things will affect you and the product you provide. Your product is probably not only a scoreboard or marketplace, so now you've added another set of things to curate, maintain, grow and adapt as they meet the world and your audience.

As design choices go with features and experiences to add to your product, points are a powerful and tempting tool. Points are used for loyalty systems, currency for marketplaces, and accomplishments recognition and lots more.

Yes you can add points to a product to encourage behaviors.

Also you're also adding something that will keep affecting both you and your audience. Your point system will add to the story and experience of your product. It's a big choice to make, worth asking if you want the effort and negative reinforcements to manage and maintain as they come up incidentally or on purpose.

Why this point system for you and for your audience?

Why are you really doing this point system and are you going to use this in a way that recognizes the power of positive reinforcement in an ethical and kind way? If you're on a team about to add points and that question is an unwelcome one, it's a clear signal that you should avoid adding points to what you make. Also a clear signal your business needs to evolve to include your audience to make choices that affect your audience in a more caring way.

CSP Clippy closing thoughts.

In writing this post I searched for a simple link of CSP telling the story of Clippy and some search results are redirected to pages talking about Clippy tokens vs Clippy tickets. Adding a currency to a currency is a deeper level of complexity where perhaps you have different kinds of behaviors with different scales of value you wish to recognize. Seriously think about that, how complex it is to add one kind of points and currency.

I don't feel a deep attachment to my Clippy points. They'll probably expire and I'll be curious to see how CSP handles that event. You can learn a lot about a company experiencing how they communicate.