Innovative operation activities: National Day operation activities based on gamification packaging

Nowadays, product operation activities are diverse and endless. How to design operation activities that can reflect product characteristics and be unique at the same time has become one of the most important manifestations of product market competitiveness.

Nowadays, the market is flooded with all kinds of apps, and the functional differences between competing products are gradually narrowing. Competition among each other no longer relies solely on functional improvement. The importance of brand and product operation and promotion has gradually emerged. Operational activities within the APP are the most common form.

There are many factors that affect the effectiveness of activities within the APP, such as the popularity of the product itself, the subsidy level of the activity (publicity, rewards, etc.), the target users of the activity, etc. When the basic factors are similar, the form of operating activities plays a particularly important role.

Especially in the past two years, operational activities for various products have emerged in an endless stream, both online and offline, with a wide variety of activities. Such as: time travel, panoramic VR , magical long pictures, interesting dynamic effects, etc. How to design unique operational activities that can reflect product characteristics has become one of the most important manifestations of product market competitiveness.

Fusion characteristics and form innovation

This event is a National Day event customized for Baidu Maps . Baidu Maps has powerful map data and provides users with travel-related services including intelligent route planning, intelligent navigation (driving, walking, cycling), real-time traffic conditions, etc. How to demonstrate the product functions and services of Baidu Maps in this event? Previous operational activities were relatively simple, mostly in the form of raffles and racing. How to break through technical barriers and create a more innovative and complete operational activity. Bring fun to users? How can operational activities be better integrated with the brand? Based on these questions, we considered:

1. Combine activity content with product features

First of all, the National Day holiday is a high-frequency period for map users. In order to better reflect the product functions and services in the event, this National Day event combines game content with real map data, quickly retrieves the user's current road information and converts it into a game map, better interpreting Baidu Maps' function and concept of using technology to make travel easier.

2. Gamification packaging effect

This operation is different from previous ones. It adopts gamification packaging as a whole, combined with the logical process of game design, making the entire operation more gamification, systematization, and interesting, enhancing the entertainment and visual experience of the operation.

3. Incorporate brand visual experience

Based on the color perception of Baidu Maps, the main colors are extended and integrated into the entire activity. Highlight the technological and intelligent visual experience of the event and strengthen the brand concept.

Enhance highlights and control details

The simple understanding of gamification packaging of operational activities is to combine operational activities with game design. The advantage of gamification packaging is that it focuses more on the fun experience of participating in the game and visual expression. The design process is more systematic, controlling every detail from story setting, character setting, prop setting, scene setting, to interface animation, operation animation, lottery animation, and operation experience.

1. Character setting

In terms of characters, we used "TuTu" as the prototype and combined it with the Pac-Man form to set different images, which embodies the map brand while increasing users' acceptance of the game content. The prop effects are defined using the main functions of the map, allowing users to understand the product functions more intuitively. Multiple adjustments were made to establish character hierarchies and proportional relationships to enhance acceptance.

2. Sound Effect Settings

The game sound effects have been screened. In order to give users a technological atmosphere, electronic remixes are added to some sound effects. There will also be voice prompts associated with the brand after eating the props.

3. Mode setting

The addition of copy mode and copy rewards can stimulate users to take on multiple challenges. Of course, all dungeon maps are designed and processed one by one according to the world's famous geographical locations or characteristic terrains to enhance the user's gaming fun.

4. Recognition and presentation optimization

The prototype is based on the Pac-Man game, and the game map route is the user's current road data. This is a new attempt, and there will be many potential problems due to the complexity of the game map. The current road scale setting will cause the game map routes to be too loose or too dense, giving users a bad gaming experience.

Likewise, different scales have different numbers of distribution scores. Therefore, we set a more comfortable ratio value and hid the small road data below level 2 to ensure that the game map route is clear and unambiguous. Although the scale has been scaled, the recognition of the game map routes is still a major problem. We tried different sizes for the routes, testing them one by one from 2 pixels to 10 pixels in width. Finally, we determined the width to be 6 pixels and unified the route style of road data above level 2, making the routes clear and easy to identify, even the opposite lanes can be clearly identified.

5. Visual style optimization

Analyze numerous technology posters and games, and extract expressions that are more suitable for Baidu Maps. The overall design is extended with the red and blue colors of Baidu Maps. The blue can better reflect elements such as the universe and road network, while the red represents the main image of the activity and better reflects the branding of the operation activities.

6 . Operational performance optimization

After ensuring the rationality of the visuals, we conducted a second test on the game's operability, redrawing roads that were not on the same level, dead ends, and roads with breakpoints to ensure smooth operation of the game map. Some details have been processed in other aspects of experience, including:

1. Add prizes to the event homepage to attract users;
2. When the game starts, the main character will appear in the center and have an invincible effect, which can prevent users from not being able to find the main character or ending the game quickly.
3. After the main character of the game appears on the screen, a prompt will be given on the other side where he will appear, giving the user a certain expectation;
4. The novice guide will be integrated into the first game to prevent some users from skipping the guide by mistake, which will lead to unclear game content.
5. In order to increase users' awareness of the activity, a PK mode is set up.

The double-edged sword of activity

A blessing in disguise. If you gain something, you will lose something. The overall visual presentation and gameplay of this event are well presented. The reading of road network data is highly relevant to the product, and the challenge and interactivity of the game are evident. However, because the activity system is relatively large, the user's learning cost and operation threshold have also increased. The high requirements for users will affect the acceptance of some users.

Lessons Learned

The operational activities within the APP are usually formulated according to the expected goals and presented to users. But what matters is not what we want to express, but what you want users to see. Subjective expression and objective presentation will always deviate due to various factors, which requires us to have clear goals, complete logic and processes at the beginning of the activity to achieve the unity of expression and presentation.

We also need to consider whether various forms of operational activities have a positive and constructive impact on users, and whether overly deep immersive experiences will bring cost pressure or impact to users. Will users be hesitant or resistant to participating in the activity due to factors such as time taken and complexity?

In short, while completing a whole set of operational activities for game experience design, we have also gained a new understanding of the diversification of operational activities. It is not only necessary to attract users through the form, but more importantly, how to grasp what users really want, simplify the complex activities, and impress users with more creative and novel ideas. This is what we need to do next.

In future activities, we will make good use of subtraction to allow operational activities to better play their own significance and value!