HIGH SCORES

Our need for efficacy is powerful. We constantly crave a sense of tangible effectiveness and are plagued by anxiety when we don’t have it. We’ll seek it out any way we can. Fortunately it is quite easy to give people a feeling of efficacy and a little bit goes a long way.

An intriguing and surprisingly subtle example from video games is the high-score table. I was designing arcade games when the high-score table was first introduced. Many game designers thought it would be a good idea, though none of us could say why. When we finally had enough memory to implement the idea we discovered that the high-score table was, in fact, an extraordinarily popular feature.

Here’s why: If you just walk away from an arcade game without setting a high score, the game resets to its original state. It is as though you were never there. But if you get your name on the high-score table, it stays until it is pushed off by higher scores. Everybody can see your name. You can bring your friends in and show them. You’ve actually made a permanent mark on the world. Well, semi-permanent. Like graffiti tagging, but legal.

Computers are extremely good at providing a sense of efficacy. If an application is well designed, the user does something and the application provides them with an instantaneous acknowledgement of their actions.

Here is an obvious bad thing: an application that churns away without letting the user know what is being churned. Clearly this produces anxiety in users. When an application ignores a user, the effect on the user is the same as if she had spoken and been ignored, even though she knew she had been heard. To ignore someone is to deny their existence. That hurts. Applications should not be emotionally harmful to their users. Applications should be informative. They should provide feedback. When appropriate they should in effect say to the user, "I’m doing exactly what you asked." and "Yes, you’ve accomplished what you intended."