What Are the Ways to Gamify Your Healthcare App?

If you open an app store on your smartphone, there is a high possibility that you won’t find an app without gamification features. Education, healthcare, and many other industries are actively using elements of games in their apps. But why?

When it comes to users, it brings them more excitement and makes the whole process, no matter what it is, easier to accomplish. For app developers, using gamification is an effective way to engage more users.

What methods can you use to implement elements of the game in your healthcare application? Here are several popular options:

• Social communication with other users (chats, comparison of results, etc.)
• Simulations of health processes and games to illustrate them.
• Implementation of a self-created plan users can change.
• Generation of statistics and graphs on users’ activities.

However, gamification is not as simple as it seems. When you decide to implement it in your app, there are specific issues you need to take care of. And in the article right here you can learn about how to start a pharmacy delivery service, when in need to create one.

Healthcare Gamification Main Features

Today, healthcare gamification is a trend full of broad possibilities. It is useful for both app developers and users. Let’s take a look at some features of healthcare gamification. They are great examples of how modern medicine can combine with technological innovations.

1. Illustrations of progress bars and statistics used to measure users’ success.
2. Ability to share results and general progress with one’s friends and other users.
3. Implementation of reward systems (medals, achievements, internal bonuses and currency, etc.)
4. Usage of game mechanics to measure one’s health indicators.

Ways to Gamify Your Healthcare App

Now, let’s move to the most interesting part of this article — how can you gamify a healthcare application? Here are some tips to keep in mind while going through this process.

●      Think of Gamification Strategy

First of all, you need to come up with a gamification strategy. It means that you should not only choose game elements you wish to implement but also decide how exactly you will do this. Usually, it covers mechanics and dynamics as both of them play a vital  part in the performance of the app.

Mechanics keeps a track of users activity. For example, calculation of steps, activation of training regime, measurements of heart rate, etc. Dynamics is another part responsible for users engagement through visual elements and social interactions with others.

One more thing to consider is implementation of personalization. It may apply to all elements of the app. For example, change of images, creation of personal avatars, ability to choose time or create a training timetable. In meditation apps, for example, a user can mention their current mood and get a meditation that suits this exact mood. When a person is stressed, the app will recommend a calming meditation.

This leads to another point you should keep in mind — human emotions. Think of what you can do to use these emotions for gamification. You can make measuring human emotions a part of your gamification strategy.

●      Don’t Neglect Design App Elements

It is important to make sure that design and visualization of all app features are top-notch. It doesn’t matter how exclusive or useful the features you present are if the design leaves much to be desired and doesn’t attract people.

The designing process has many aspects, as it includes much more than just app icons and layout. It covers the following elements: leaderboards, events, challenges, menus, reward stickers, points a user gets, etc.

The design, combined with the app’s functions, must encourage users to download your product and use it daily. A great example of a well-designed healthcare app is Mango Health. It has a simple interactive design, which users adapt to fast. They enter their medicine prescriptions, and the application generates a timetable and sends notifications when it is time to take medicine. There is also a reward system. The longer users stay on schedule, the larger is the reward they can get. For example, Mango Health users can get various gift cards.

●      Implementation Stage

When you figure out your healthcare app’s gamified features, design, and strategy, it’s time to take care of some other aspects.

1. Data privacy and security. Your app collects users data on their activity and elements of private life. To avoid any privacy problems, you need to add reliable security protocols.
2. Compatibility with other devices. You need to decide what kind of devices your app will support. There are several most popular options: smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and wireless headphones. Based on the compatible devices, your app will collect different types of information.

After taking care of these things, you can go through an implementation stage. Make sure that you have considered every small detail. When you release the product, always pay attention to users’ feedback so that you know what needs to be improved or what they like the most.