The Happy Medium

A little habit over time

Buster Benson—or Buster McLeod, or Erik Benson, depending on how long you’ve known him, I suppose—works independently under his company Enjoymentland, creating apps that help improve lives. Benson isn’t the typical designer I’ve spoken with in the past, but his brand of game (the kind that often exists in interface alone, that adds an extra layer to reality) has been getting a lot of critical attention recently. Not the least of which has been spurned by a TED talk from Jesse Schell.

Benson’s work includes 750 Words, a comfortable platform to write daily. 8:36pm, which encourages people to take a picture of what they are doing every day at 8:36 pm. Locavore, which helps people find locally grown food in their area. And now Health Month, a web app that let’s you choose and customize healthy rules to live by for a month, charting your progress socially and in a game-like environment.

Buster was kind enough to converse with me via a string of emails about the impact of social web apps, keeping a healthy work life, and the design of motivation.

THM: You’ve programmed mostly apps in the past. What is it that brought you toward game design with Health Month?

Benson: I’ve begun to really delve into game mechanics and games in general mostly as a continuation of my interest in motivation and goal-making. I’ve long been interested in hacking my own behaviour, figuring out what motivates me to do the things I want to do, and by extension what motivates others. Games are a great tool in this direction, as they are light-hearted and playful (the optimal mindset to do your best work) while also being really powerful motivators in their own right.  

I tested a lot of the ideas with 750 Words in order to tackle another great tool for self-motivation: private brainstorming. After learning that the game mechanics layer helped motivate myself and many others to do something that we wanted to do, I started thinking about other ways to apply these tools to other equally important areas of our lives. Hence, Health Month.

What is it that makes that “dangling carrot”, that can turn mundane tasks that we don’t want to do into a game-like scenario that we want to do?

I think that “dangling carrot” is a good term for it, even though there has been a lot of research lately that the carrot, in general, is a bad motivator. We don’t want to chase carrots, it turns out, when it comes to the most important things in our lives. But if you think about the visual metaphor a bit more, I think it is actually a really good trick of psychology. You dangle a carrot in front of someone when you want them to go in a certain direction. Now, what happens when you’re dangling carrots in front of yourself, and you get to choose the direction? That’s the truly magical component. If you can align your “carrot” with your values, aspirations, and goals, then what you end up doing is providing a little kickstart towards a goal that will eventually become intrinsically motivating.

Carrots, points, badges, etc, are great short-term bursts of motivation that can help get the motor started. They are not the end in themselves… but if you kick yourself in the right direction, it just might be enough to get the motor started and get you moving in a direction towards a goal that is more intrinsic in its reward. Then, the carrot can be taken away. I’ve found this to be the case on 750 Words. People no longer need badges and other rewards once they’re past 100 days in a row. I think the same kind of pattern will emerge on Health Month, if I have designed it right.

Do you think games that “dangle a carrot” without any real-world benefits are amoral? Can “traditional” games be as life changing as the environments you design?

Console games definitely have benefits too, but they really should be treated as an entirely separate thing than these real-world casual + social games.  They are early adopters (and inventors) of many of the mechanics, but the content is very different, and their purpose and target audience is also very different.  

That said, I’ve heard about some games that have started to go to great depths to recreate historical narratives, like particular battles during WWII, or the Vietnam War. If this trend continues, I can imagine history being taught through games… in a first person immersive kind of way that, for example, historical documentaries have attempted to do in the past. Rather than read a text book about Renaissance art, pass this game (and take the final score as the grade).   

How will Health Month change as a game?

It’s going to change a lot in the next several months. I want to boil the game down to its core elements, which I’m still learning about. For example, I will be focusing more on teams, and the team dynamic, as I think that’s really the best way to play the game. Also, I have a lot of ideas about how to learn more about the best way to play certain rules. For example, if you want to change your intake of alcohol in a sustainable way, provide tools to help you make the best version of the rule for you, based on how others have fared in similar situations.

As for the intrinsic elements of the game, I’m very interested in figuring out how to encourage lasting, sustainable behaviour change, and that means tapping more into the “health as a reward in itself” aspect of health improvement. Having recently read Drive, by Daniel Pink, I’m going to be exploring ways to bring the trinity of intrinsic rewards into the game: namely allowing for autonomy (choose your own rules), mastery (learn from your own game play), and purpose (do it for the right reasons).

You’ve written about games making small changes in our lives. Are those changes always positive? What games have changed you, for better or worse?

Changes aren’t always positive. For example, Facebook and Twitter have changed our lives by making it easier to stay in touch with people. The trade-off is that we spend more time in front of a screen instead of a face. As for games that have changed my life, I’d say games like Foursquare have changed me for the better… and have actually helped make me more social on several occasions that I otherwise would’ve been. Other games, like my 8:36pm game have changed me for the better (I think) by making me a bit more appreciative of the small moments in life… and how a little habit over time can draw a bigger picture than you would be able to draw in any other way.

I was wondering what you’re work environment (mentally and physically) is like. You seem to keep a balanced lifestyle, which is often incongruous with how programmers work.

All of this probably comes out of the fact that my interest lies in quality of life… optimizing for happiness. I build tools that help me optimize my own life for happiness (43 Things, Locavore, 750 Words, Health Month) and as a result have learned a lot about what environment I work best in. This involves walking to work, working on small teams or alone, leaving a lot of flexibility to the working hours (if I’m not being productive, stop working and read a book or go on a walk), etc… It would be pretty strange if I was living a workaholic lifestyle while building tools for other people to live more balanced and creative lives, I think. Luckily, in my case, the work environment is a natural side effect of the topics I’ve chosen to focus my life’s work on.

And then there’s the ability for games to teach mental skills… being able to make quick judgments, solve puzzles, remember small details, and even coordinate in social groups are all things that I probably picked up from my own love for video games when I was a kid.

You’ve talked a bit about running on your blog. Do you find it meditative? Do designs come from this?

Yes. Running, walking, bouncing Niko (my 5-month old son) on my shoulder. Every repetitive physical action has turned into a meditation for me. A time to myself, where most of my faculties are taken over by some mindless activity so that the inside of my brain can sit and spin in circles around something for a while. Designs come out of this, but also ideas, inspirations, and epiphanies about my entire life (not just my projects).