The Secret Mechanisms - Designing for pleasure

Jesse Schell, video game designer, CEO of Schell Games and author of The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, argues in this 2013 talk that new behaviours must be things people “wanna” do, not things they “hafta” do. In other words, new behaviours have to be pleasurable rather than forced.

The talk is a useful prompt for anyone designing products or services meant to change behaviour. Ask yourself whether you are helping users do something they want to do for the pleasure of it, and how you might bring more fun into your design. Persuasive patterns such as curiosity and delighters describe some of the ways products create that pleasure.