Gamification @ Work

Speaker
Janaki Kumar
Senior Director of Under Experience, SAP Labs

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

Gamification is the application of game design principles and mechanics to solve real world problems. Gamification makes technology more inviting by encouraging users to engage in desired behaviors by showing the path to mastery and autonomy, and by taking advantage of human being’s innate enjoyment of play.

Enterprise software refers to software that businesses use to run their day-to-day activities such as finance, sales, human resources, shipping and procurement. It is typically purchased by companies and made available to their employees. It provides visibility to executives to the health of their organization and enables them to make course corrections as needed.

In this talk Janaki will make the case that it is possible to mix work and play, and create an engaging experience for the enterprise worker. She will further outline a process called the “Player Center Design” that will help product designers, and developers adopt and apply the principles of Gamification into their software.

Speaker's Bio

Janaki Kumar is a Senior Director of User Experience at SAP Labs Palo Alto. She leads a team of interaction designers who work on business applications relating to sustainability, cloud based customer relationship management, customer service and social as well as other design led innovation projects. She became interested in gamification a few years ago when working on sustainability. Gamification provided a fun way to motivate and encourage ongoing employee engagement in sustainability initiatives. Since then, she has explored introducing gamification in other business areas.

Janaki has a Masters in Finance from India and a Masters in Information Systems from Boston University. She has filed 18 and holds 13 patents for innovative user interface concepts. She can be followed on twitter @JanakiKumar and she is a regular contributor to sapdesignguild.org.

Speaker's Website
http://janakikumar.posterous.com/

Host
Brad Myers