Ep 165| How to Storify and Gamify your projects - 10X more job visibility & 4 powerfull strategies to attract customers

How do you really make your viewers or your recruiters or your your design project managers or customers or clients to hook on to your projects for a longer time? How do you make them really interesting to talk about your project or to show about your project or to present about your project? There is a big element called story, guys. A lot of people take it lightly. There is a big element called gamification. Okay, so these two aspects is going to run the entire show. People have really become successful because not for their projects or brands or anything, it's because of the story. It's because of the story, what that brand tells or the way in which people love it in a gamified way. So in this podcast, I'm going to be telling you how to storify and gamify your projects in order to get a 10x more what you call carrier growth and customer retention rate and what you call hooked conversion rates in your landing pages or projects or website or apps using this technique. Take a lot of notes. I'm going to be sharing you four powerful techniques in both of this. Welcome to yet another episode. Thank you for staying tuning in with me, guys. Very important topic today is storification. Okay, I'll give you four powerful strategies how you can storify it. First, let me tell you what is the background of this story. See, people love movies because it's terrifying. People have an engagement for hours together because there is a story in it. Nobody sticks to a monitor for three hours, right? Nobody sticks to a movie screen for three hours even without going for a pee or taking a break or drinking a water. So that's the power of story. Humans have evolved from the ancestors from the ancient times because of powerful storytelling. People have united, people have networked. People have become a whole band of groups and communities and religions and what do you call a lot of big organizations have formed because of stories. Let me give you what is a part and element of a story. See, when you are designing a project, when you did a project, or when you're writing a case study, you do it whatever is your original pattern and all but have four things in your mind. Take a note of note, guys. Definitely if you're not taking notes, you're not going to understand it. First is you need to have a hero who is the hero in your project. Second is you need to have a goal where your hero needs to go. Okay? Third, find out a villain who is going to obstruct this hero in order to reach that path. Maybe the hero could be a person or A bad situation or a superficial thing or anything. Okay. Fourth is show the afterlife what a hero is going to achieve after reaching that goal. If you have these four elements rightly defined in your project for any project, you can do it. Guys. Like let's say if you're doing a project for E waste management, like let's say who is going to be a hero? Your hero is going to be your. What you call the person who is going to use it. The villain is going to be the. What you call the. The. The bad ill effects of E waste which is accumulating in our society and the cancer agents and other things which is going to get produced because of the waste industry. Okay, what's the final goal? To make a clean, greener environment which is really sustainable for us. What is the after story? People can lead a healthy, happy and a sustainable life. So when you're able to put this elements of your story for this E waste project and then you build a case study around it, like let's say your project caption could be like can you envision a world of E waste society through our application, what we have designed which has already saved one big city saving 4 tons of e waste using our solution. If you wanted to know more about it, go and read the story, go and read the case study, go and read the application, go and read the website. Do you think people will not be interested to read this? People will be damn interested to go and click and see what is happening. This is the power of story, guys. When you're not able to create a story, when you're not able to create a hero for your project or a villain for your project and the way in which you're doing it would be much difficult. That's why the first powerful strategy is craft a compelling narrative. Tell a story through your portfolio projects showcase, not just a final project, guys. Just show the journey how they really get into that. Highlight the challenges, solutions and success along the way. See? Do you think a movie will be very successful? Like let's say if a hero is there. Like let's say the hero is loving a girl and then there is a father for that girl and hero is proposing that girl and the girl is accepting and both of this boy and girl is going and telling their home, their home is accepting and they are getting married, they are happily getting a child and that the child is going into a good school, getting good marks. Do you think this movie will run in the screen? People are going to tear that screen and that movie is not going to Run even for a day. The way in which you frame a hero or a villain or a situation or afterlife is going to make all the difference. You take any Hollywood films. Guys, this is the four elements which you can see. I've learned it from one of the best storytellers in the world. He's an Hollywood artist and I've read it from his case today. I've read it from his book and I've understood the real element of it. Even if you see my courses, everything will be storyfied because I cannot really hold attention of a student without a story. Nobody will be hearing the dry subject for hours together. Guys. Okay, by the time I told you three stories, can you, can you just understand? Can you just recollect? If you listen to this podcast one more time, you will know. You will know all of my podcast will have some stories for at least five minutes. I would have given you one or two stories because that keeps you engaged, that keeps you really interesting, and that keeps you what's going to come next. So that's very important. Guys. Okay, so you need to understand that the second powerful tool is focus on the user stories. See, instead of just listing the features, frame your design around your user stories. Like let's say using E Waste, some people would have died in India. Showcase that there are 500 plus families who has lost their lives because of E Waste. See, now the project becomes even more interesting. I'm just taking an example of E Waste, but you can use it for any project. Okay. Describe the problems user face, how your design really address them, and positive outcomes of this user experience. The second important thing, focus on user stories. Third is visual storytelling. See, use sketches, visuals, renders, storyboards, Personas. Convey all of your things. Use your visual elements. Don't just write boring sentences. It's not really engaging for any user. Okay? Very, very important. When you're able to use this, the fourth important powerful thing is use case studies. Create a detailed case study of your project. Outline the problem, show your approach, process and show some real case study data study and understanding and secondary research. Show some data and depth for your work. You know what, when people see this, they will not only see the output, they'll see a skill, they'll see a process. They'll see a thinking process that gets you hired and that keeps you apart. Guys, even if you have a one project in your portfolio which is in this format, people are going to love to have you. People are going to have you like anything. People are going to give you any salary. What you ask People don't really understand the power of the story. Okay, this is first part of the podcast. The second is gamification. Oh, Jagdish, am I really designing your games? No, Am I really Jagdish? I'm not a game designer here. See, I'm just a product designer. I wanted to really make my projects really good. And how do I really understand gamification in that context? Let me give you guys, no matter what projects you do, you can gamify that. In my course also I create a games. You know what, in one week students have to play a game. I'll give them points, I'll give them rewards, I'll give them punishment. Punishment is not in the sense of what you call that harsh punishment, punishment in a different way in order to improve them. So when you have a game, you need to have a reward or a punishment. We work in this world only for two reasons, guys. It's because of love or it's because of punishment. Simple, we do things because of love or we do things because somebody is going to punish us. If somebody is putting you a gun on your head and asking you to do something, will you do it or not? So understand the reward and punishment how our brain works. Okay? So in your project, identify the key mechanics of your project. Determine what game mechanics are most suitable for your project. Like let's say, like let's say in your project. It could be badges, it could be a leaderboards, it could be some challenges or progress bar. So tailor that experience in your user engagement. This will keep you motivated. This will keep your users motivated when they're reviewing your projects. Because if you show a plain case study without anything, people are not going to love it. So show some progress bars and interesting interactive elements. And you know what the second important thing is? Set a clear goals and rewards. Like let's say if people are going to view this project, give them a reward. Hey Jagdish, how come I'll give a reward here? People are reading my case study, right? How will they, how will I give the reward? Think guys. If you really think for your project, you will get an idea before thinking you should not come into a conclusion or something. Like let's say if they are viewing your e waste project, okay, what is the reward you can give? You can set something like if you really read this case study and then if you go and click that what you call like button for our Instagram page, you are the one among thousand people in India who's going to support this E waste initiative and we are going to send our newsletters and information for you. See, that's a gift, right? That's a. That's a great sense of contribution. That's a reward, right? So people will be interested to read that case study before subscribing for that Instagram handle or Facebook or whatever is your personal page. So think guys, you will get huge amount of reward in your project. Don't just say I have a project. I'll put a user research, I'll put ideation, I'll put some sketches, I'll put some figma file, I'll submit a case study. It's gone guys, gone. Over those days, people are going into a next level of portfolio making to get a job and all these things. So don't use these old strategies because you'll be clearly thrown away. There are softwares which a HR uses to identify have you used ChatGPT or have you used Googlebot or any other AI tools to write down your case studies. And also be very careful if you are becoming smart, they are much smarter than you because AI companies are serving for recruitment industry also, right? ChatGPT is not only working for us. So ChatGPT works in all the dimensions. So you need to be more authentic and real and novel to really make a distinction out of it. Okay? The third powerful tool is create meaningful interactions. Say design interactions that are more enjoyable and purposeful. If you put a big case study of your project, people will be bored. Guys, have some interaction. Hey, click here to know more about the project. So the moment when they take action to click it, they'll be interactive, they'll be engaged. You are. You're making them come out of their comfort zone or not becoming in that lazy zone. So ensure that gamified elements enhance the user experience rather to detract them. So strive for a balance between fun and functionality. The fourth is show the feedback and progress tracking. See, implement a mechanism for your user to track their progress. Even if you're doing a project, guys, you can able to implement. See guys, all of the techniques, whatever. I told you, it's going to be useful for your projects as well. Okay, let me recollect you guys. If you are doing a story, craft a story narrative. Focus on the user stories. Create a hero, villain, situation and afterlife. Focus on visual storytelling. Focus on case study and data. If you're designing, if you wanted to put a gamification for your project, identify the key mechanics of gaming. Set a clear goals and rewards and punishment. Create a meaningful interaction. And fourth is have a feedback and Progress tracking. Implement these mechanisms to really track their progress. Receive the feedbacks for the work what they did. Visual indicators and notifications are the best way to give feedback to keep them motivated and engaged in your project. You know what guys, there is a user engagement statistics with site research studies or industry reports that demonstrate effectiveness of gamification and storification in improving the user engagement. Example A Gartner predicted that in 2025 80% of the gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives due to poor design. See what do you really get this? Gartner predicted that 2025 80% of the game gamified application will fail to meet the business objective due to a poor design. So designers are very much inherently needed to really boom that thing. But if you are not understanding the gamification and if you are not putting the what you call effort to really gamify your own project or to tell about your story, you won't be able to make that difference guys, because future is in a different way. You, you need to understand that. So retention and conversion rates are really going high. So present data on like gamification and storification can really impact your user attention. You know what, if you take a metrics from your data team how much users are involving in your website or an application, you can instantly increase it by introducing these interactive elements. You know what? A case study by Adobe found that gamified experience can lead up to 100% increase in engagement, 50% increase in time spent on website. It will bring a huge ROI for your industry. Guys. You know what? Increased ROI is what companies are really looking for. If you really show that ROI in your projects. People will love to have your concepts, guys. People will love to have your. What do you call your ideas or something. So a study by Bunchball found that gamification can increase your user engagement by up to 800%. It's a source by Bunchbol Gamification Report 2018 According to a study by Stanford University, stories are 22 times more memorable than facts. I told you, right? Stories really, really sell for the people. Guys. It's not facts really tell something, but stories really go into people. People buy your products or services or anything. Because of that, your design manager is going to buy your design. You know, buying happens there first. Your design manager or your colleague or somebody in your team first really accepts your concept. If you, if you're not able to sell to them, of course it will not go to the customer at all. So Stanford Research Graduate School of Business told that using stories to sell 22 times more memorable. Guys understand it's not a small number. Okay so a study by University of Minnesota found that gamification elements can increase your attention span up to 90 percentage University of Minnesota Gamification in Education and Business. You can read that I'm going to be pasting this what you call journal also guys in the link so that you can able to verify and go and read that. It's not like I'm telling a story and all I'm giving you facts and validation. Research by Marigold Limopa demonstrate that gamification can enhance learning and skill development to a greater extent an innovation strategy for HR practices. So combining all this glorification and the balance of gamification will keep your projects in a next level. Guys, I hope you got a clarity in this projects in this podcast what I've explained you. If you need my support in gamifying and storyfying your projects, you can sign up for my mentorship or or even you can write to this email DFC if design for change to get a one on one call with me to get that clarification. I do help students in that way, but not for all the people. You can send an email and if you're a lucky winner definitely will select you because I cannot give this for hundreds and hundreds of users because I'll be flooded with email then. So if you're really a serious listeners, definitely do that and I'll be happy to return it back to you with a special one to one. If you wanted to have a full time mentorship with me, you can sign up for this mentorship program. I'll be more than happy to help you out guys. Okay, you can send that email and if you find this podcast useful, give me a best star rating in Spotify and Apple and subscribe me for further episodes. Guys, thank you. All the best. Bye bye.