Gamification for graphic designers
To make your documents more engaging and fun here is how you can think like a game designer, by Shaun Lee courtesy of Design Assembly.
Discover
Readers will nearly always scan your document first. To get a deeper engagement you can design rewards for readers. Smaller illustrations, annotations and layout choices can surprise and delight. Designers have a lot more to offer authors than just choosing a complementary typeface.
Complete
Readers will often finish reading the page (or the rest of the document) just because they were already 75% of the way through. You should take advantage of this by laying out the lighter, more engaging content at the start. Also, make sure you are chunking up the information clearly so that readers know what they have completed and how much more they have to go.
Quantify
Tell them what you have told them. The best way to do this is to try and imagine how your reader would recommend your document. What would they say? Now tell them that . Make it loud and clear what they have achieved by reading your entire document.
Here are a bunch of techniques you can use to make your document more fun.
A. Find stuff
Get readers to hunt for things. E.g. Where’s Wally or Spot the difference.
B. Check lists
Readers might actually want to write on your document. This is a great way to force physical engagement with the message. Job done! Do not be afraid to let people be negative. People who like shooting aliens and deciding who is the hottest also like crossing stuff out and ranking things.
C. Free fields
What could they write and why—it might be a note for themselves or a friend. Even if they do not write anything or tear it off, this simple prompt will get them to think “How would I answer that question?”.
D. Cut/fold make it into something
There are so many things your readers could make from your document. Do a Google image search for “paper engineering”.
E. Play with it (e.g. pop up)
Fancy printing techniques like die cutting cost extra but you will be surprised where clients can find money when you offer to transform their boring collateral into something really fun.
Courtesy of Design Assembly / conversations on graphic design.
