The truth is, gamification is like any other UX improvement. It needs to be driven by the users and the goals of the developer, and so involves intense, specialized UX research. Get to know the user, get to know what motivates them, understand their psychology and their needs, and then determine how play can affect their behavior.
It turns out, however, that there are a few simple tricks that actually do boost retention by double digit percentages! They're just not gamification.
This first one seems counter-intuitive, because it involves increasing friction in onboarding. Most people assume that you want your onboarding to be as brief and painless as possible so the user can dive right into your app. But there are a few reasons you might want to slow down this process.
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