Remember Candy Crush? The level of addiction would have been nothing if we didn’t know other players’ scores. With proper planning and execution, leaderboards can be a powerful gamification tool to engage your learners. Leaderboard gamification transforms learning into fun!
Leaderboards act as an effective engagement tool and drive you to play on! Take Microsoft as an example. The giant software house takes leaderboards as a key engagement tool as their Xbox Live games include the game mechanic.
Moreover, almost 90% of mobile games use leaderboard gamification to keep players engaged and craving more. Leaderboards are described as “an original and best social feature!” by Game Sparks developers.
What Is A Leaderboard In Gamification?
A leaderboard in gamification is an excellent tool for motivating individuals. It gamifies tasks and goals by giving users continuous feedback on their position relative to other group members. When done correctly, this can ignite constructive rivalry that strengthens group bonds.
This is a visual illustration of a basic scoreboard that a business may utilize to encourage staff members to take part in its employer health program.
Employees can view the top-ranked competitors in this example, along with their current scores. They can also see the incentive prizes and the remaining time in the contest. Naturally, the rankings through the leaderboard in gamification are updated in real-time as the data changes (validated step counts).
What Is The Leaderboard In Education?
A leaderboard is a gamification tool in education that ranks students based on their performance, scores, or achievements within various learning activities. It serves as a visual representation of progress, igniting a competitive environment that can usher in student engagement and motivation. They can share their leaderboard socially via any social share plugin.
When designed thoughtfully, leaderboards gamification in learning can transform traditional learning environments into engaging and interactive spaces that promote personal growth and academic success.
What are The Types of Leaderboard Gamification?
Leaderboards come in two different kinds:
Absolute Leaderboards
Absolute leaderboards use a global metric to rank every competitor. These usually show the group’s highest-ranked individuals, like a Top 10.
Relative Leaderboards
To group individuals based on more specific or relative criteria, relative leaderboards rank players about various aspects of the data. Moving the data in various ways would call for intricate computations. For instance, a view that displays a competitor’s ranking along with the competitors immediately above and below them is a typical gaming scenario.
Leaderboard Gamification Template
There are no restrictions on what your gamification scoreboard can measure. You have a great deal of flexibility in determining what is most important to you, whether that be the quantity or percentage of times an action is finished or even the action’s monetary value.
Performance metrics that you could rank on a leaderboard include the following:
- Rate of success
- Daily streaks
- Monetary value
- Revenue impacted
- Percentage of times an activity is performed
- Number of times an activity is performed
You don’t have to restrict your leaderboard gamification to just one performance metric. Mix and match to see how your members are doing across all of them. After that, everyone can see where they’re succeeding and where they need to improve!
How to Use Leaderboard Gamification to Engage Learners
1. Ranking Through Rewards
Learners earn virtual rewards like digital badges for completing different activities. Adding leaderboard gamification into the mix can take learning to a whole new level! Rank learners according to how many rewards they have achieved.
With the increase in scores, their position on the leaderboards would go up. Companies can display each participant’s score to see who leads the charts. Let the battle begin through leaderboard gamification using rewards!
2. Incentivize Action
Learners can earn badges or reward points for anything they do during the learning phase. Whether you’re completing your profile or updating your training status, you can expect to get rewards!
As an administrator, you decide which actions to incentivize through rewards. Choose and encourage actions on a leaderboard that help you reach your learning and business goals.
The attraction of the top position will motivate learners to engage with the platform and training. They will go the extra mile to beat their rival on the leaderboard if they know they are only one action away!
3. Customize for Epic Meaning
Gamification enables you to add extra layers to give meaning through leaderboards. You can play with the title and description of every leaderboard to fit the training themes. For instance, if you run an institute, you could name the leaderboard “Top Learners” or “Learner of the Session.”
Whatever you choose to do, make sure your title resembles your corporate mission. This way, your gamification of a leaderboard will remind learners how their growth helps the company’s bigger goals.
4. Boost Collaborative Social Learning
Leaderboard gamification is beyond throw-competition and competing for the top spot. Leaderboard gamification can be used to get people in a learning system to work together, learn from each other, and share what they know.
Administrators can create discussion groups for any organization-related topic, such as “Fresh Product Lines.” Learners can earn points for making each comment, and their score will determine their place on the leaderboard based on the discussion group.
The attraction of leading the charts can lure learners to join the conversations. They push learners to give their input. This will foster a healthy learning community and better content.
5. Spot Outliers and Trends
Leaderboard gamification allows admins to highlight shifts in learner engagement. These trends are key and should aid in updating your training strategy. Those at the bottom of the leaderboard need special attention for improvement.
Spotting outliers and trends is crucial because once you know about a problem, you can respond to it! For example, you can launch a targeted campaign to support your worst performers.
Final Words
That’s it. Use leaderboard gamification to fuel the competitive spirits of your learners. Fighting for the top spot always helps make the learning environment a fun-filled activity. We covered what leaderboards are and how you can use them to support workplace learning. We saw how big corporations use the leaderboard gamification technique from different angles. Now it’s up to you to use this aspect of gamification to make learning more fun.
