Why are there so few interconnections between application design and interaction design of games? I got a link from mo. to an interesting reading that fired up again the topic into my head. The article from Laura Alter is about ‘How to create a sticky user experience‘ and it gives some good points to start with.

“I suppose it’s not hard to make the leap that game developers are the kings and queens of sticky.”
Laura Alter

The high times of using game mechanics on application design are still about to come. Information through the internet is highly available and the fun of using an application can be a key issue to success. Development and programming of applications is getting more easy with lots of cool tools to support development and millions of possible features to support the user can become quite complex. Similar we can find in games: they have in part very complex control and navigation structures while the gamer at the same time learns the complex control structure gradually simply by playing the game. Good games start simple and then add complexity for the user to power up and master the area of activity.

And there we are in the Web 2.0 zone, where much applications also start out very simple and grow complex over time. A good basis for building such applications are agile software development strategies – mandatory for contemporary web-development and at least online application design. Go and read this overview article on how game mechanics can make your application more fun. Recommended reading on Digital Tools is miniature gardens and micro/macro scales to support the user and re-use of content, procedural vs. handcrafted gamedesign.