Slashdot Mirror
Why Work Is Looking More Like a Video Game
james_bong666 writes "According to the New York Times, business software vendors can learn a great deal from how video games are designed.
This makes a lot of sense — how many professionals like working with their software in the office as much as gaming after hours? Developers can deal with looking at tables and grids full of data to make decisions and get things done, but other types of workers (executives, salespeople, etc.) have little to no attention span and need a picture to be worth a thousand words, i.e. their software designed completely differently."
Actually videogames are becoming more like work than being a diversion where a person can blow off steam. Have you played GTA: San Andreas? All those mini button pushing games just to get the character up to snuff to complete a quest. Don't get me started on Harvest Moon. Pokemon with its breeding, hatching eggs, growing berries and other nonsense. Games don't reward the player for their skill or talent at completing a level or pulling off a stunt. Nowadays games simply add hours to their playtime by adding hours and hours of pointless grinding to unlock something really stupid.
By the way, I don't care how much someone loves their job. Anyone who stays after-hours and plays games or just hangs out is sad.
Actually it's not the interface that makes the game fun... There are some games that have great interfaces - that I personally do not find fun to play (CIV, WoW), etc. I also disagree with this statment: "other types of workers (executives, salespeople, etc.) have little to no attention span and need a picture to be worth a thousand words" I fail to see how employment position is a realisic and valid way to determine attention span.
The guys at Naked Objects (http://www.nakedobjects.org/) have been singing a similar tune for some time now. Not the part about making business more like games, but about using "open-ended" and proper object oriented software that allows user interaction similar to games. I think they even used The Incredible Machine as inspiration.
You mean
"Gaming is more like work nowadays"
?
These people don't need their software designed completely differently, they just need it designed better.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I think TFA is missing the point. After reading it, I came away with "If we make work less like work and more like fun, then it will be fun." However, fun does not equal associating pictures, likes/dislikes, favorite colors etc with a business contact. I think the point is that if your job requires you to use a CRM system, then it is not fun by definition, and no amount of reskinning that interface is going to make it more enjoyable.
I agree that the ideas of connection, management and cooperation within MMORPG are potentially interesting in the context of managing large companies, but the "making work like a videogame" metaphor doesn't work for me.
yskel
From here:
h hhhhH!"
Another user rings "I said what I wanted was more space on my account, *please*"
"Sure, hang on"
I hear him gasp his relief even though he'd covered the mouthpeice.
"There, you've got *plenty* of space now!"
"How much have I got?" he simps
"Well, let's see, you have 4 Meg available"
"Wow! Eight Meg in total, thanks!" he says, pleased with his bargaining power
"No" I interrupt, savouring this like a fine red at room temperature, with steak, extra rare, to follow; "4 Meg in total.."
"Huh? I'd used 4 Meg already, How could I have 4 Meg Available?"
I say nothing. It'll come to him.
"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggg
Does this mean that in order to advance to "the next level," you have to kill the Big Boss at the end of the current level?
This has parallels with what I am learning in medical school (yes, a med student who reads slashdot *gasp*). We are taught that we cannot use medical jargon to explain things to patients, because our level of training and experience is completely different from that of the average patient. This is also true in software, but I don't think developers are taught this point. This often results in the user not understanding what may have been obvious to the software designer, and a program that is not popular with the public. In both fields, I feel one must think at the level of the end user. In medicine, it is to provide the best health outcome by promoting understanding. We do this because we recognize that not everyone is health literate. In software, I think to be successful, it is also important to recognize that not everyone is tech literate, and design products accordingly.
I can definitely see this sort of thing happening in my line of work; I'm a mechanical engineer who specializes in design. I'll spend the bulk of my work week playing with 3D models, and the finite element model does all the work I hated having to do by hand. The people who use my work give ratings for how much they like the final product, so I like to think of (that rating)/(total cost) as my "score".
ETrade's user trading interface was deliberately designed to look something like a video game. Not too many choices, self-guiding, big type. This encourages users to trade too much.
When your workplace starts looking like Doom 1, you probably need glasses.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I've always wanted a word processor where backspace and delete would show Packman eating away the letters.
Bert
I don't think it's a matter of work imitating games, I think it's that application developers are now going down the same usability design paths that games require. Most people aren't required to play games, so the successful ones are the engaging ones, the games that give you a clear idea of what you need to do, and clearly present the required information. People like overcoming challenges when they think they see the way to do it. At work people are often dealing with scenarios where they would like to do a good job, but may not have the information on what is required, or they are dealing with too many factors to filter the wheat from chaff. They may lose focus because they have forgotten what their goals are. Most of management training revolves around how to present information to people, which provides the feedback loop people need to do their jobs. The idea that this is starting to show up in applications is an interesting, but natural step.
I actually made the comparison between a video game and my work just a few days ago, though not in the manner being discussed in the above article. Here is an example:
;)
I was tasked with setting up the Outlook profiles of 3 new users in the accounting office. This should be a very straight-forward, brain-dead job. To complete this, however, involved me eventually having to replace a machine in the office, which meant a trip across campus to the purchasing office in order to locate a spare box. The purchasing guy wouldn't give up his spare box willingly unless I performed another task he needed accomplished and which had been far lower on IT's priority list. To complete THAT task, I had to drive to another location, speak to yet another person, fix yet another problem, and finally wind up back where I started.
Had someone asked me to climb a magic mountain to retrieve an ancient artifact in order to unlock some secret spell would have made as much sense.
On the flipside, I gained +750 EP, +200 gold, and rose 2 levels.
I'm an up-and-coming game designer who has spent a lot of his time researching fundamental game mechanics and play concepts. A lot of what's coming out of the slashdotted article is that the program is being redesigned to make more sense to the user. Business productivity and sales software was never meant to be "exciting" or "flashy", it was just designed to get the job done.
The reason why video games such as Second Life, World of Warcraft, and even RTS games such as SimCity, Civilization, and Age of Empires are so successful is that they present their data in a way that makes sense to the Player. The data is shown in a way that the Player can easily interpret in terms of His/Her progression, and it is this simplication of statistics the game's software provides that removes a lot of the number-crunching and interpretation that is usually involved in the real-life equivalent the game simulates (being mayor of a city, for instance). Thanks to this the Player spends less time interpreting data and more time thinking about how to resolve conflicts or improve performance. In terms of software design, more is being done under the hood to better address the connection between abstract data and the user's goals. Like the article points out, the kinds of organizations found in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Second Life are so prevalent and successful thanks to the design of each games' respective interface. Guilds succeed because the game was designed to handle them.
I don't think that salespeople have "short attention spans" like the article claims, I just believe that there is a larger gap between the Users' goals and the software that sustains them. Programmers these days have it easy with high-level languages such as C++, but if we all went back to the age where we had to program in machine code or assembly language we would be dealing with similar issues.
I see where they're coming from - my work resembles World of Warcraft. I'm a Level 2 Helpdesk Officer, work with trolls and orcs, don't have nearly enough gold, and have to grind for ages (often repeating the same missions multiple times) to get enough experience to level up.
I already can make work look like a videogame... Just look at my interface to kill processes :-D
Yes, it's a monstrously ignorant AND arrogant statement. The writer condescends that anyone other than "developers" has depth of thought.
Besides the comment above concerning the juggling of a large number of time-sensitive tasks, there are many, many different types of thought and operating environments.
I've been a software developer, a salesmen and an executive. Each role has its own focus and its own "style" of thinking. Most developers can't sell because they can't properly communicate with people who are interested in the result, not the tool itself. Technical people also tend to get very, very jealous of salespeople who are perceived as "playing" all the time. Being good at anything takes investment, effort, guts and skill. Ask the average software developer to make 10 cold calls on the phone to potential clients and see what happens.
There's a wonderful scene in the Zulu Dawn movie where the British infantry men need ammunition. Their supply sergeant makes them stand in line and will only give them one box at a time following procedures. He's so focussed on the task and enamored with his skill at performing it he totally misses the big picture and the soldiers can't get the ammunition they need.
Likewise, I can't tell you the number of times I've watched a designer screw up a presentation because he's clueless about the non-verbal queues from the prospects or how to speak confidently and at the level of details the client wants. They usually don't comprehend the business of business or the impact of many decisions they make upon the clients. Are they "bad" people? No, they're just ignorant and unaware. Their focus might be just what is needed to get the little details right and go from "almost there" to "it works." but it takes many different personality, activity and communication styles working as a team to have any kind of real success.