Online services are efficient but rarely fun. Could things be different?
How often has an online service or an app from a public authority made you smile?
Digital services are often efficient and serve their purpose, but equally often they can feel too serious. Researcher Kai Tuuri from the University of Jyväskylä believes that the next big step in their development may be in how much fun they are. Tuuri is looking for fun that can enhance the user experience – and even users’ engagement with a service.
Does such a thing as a fun online service even exist?
The kind of fun we are investigating is not necessarily visible as laughter or even a smile. I am convinced that services already use elements that enable fun, but research is needed to identify and articulate them,” Tuuri says.
Tuuri’s team starts from the premise that services should include lasting, immersive fun. That kind of service is engaging and sparks spontaneous interest in using it.
There are also other positive effects: service with an element of fun can enhance the user experience, deepen learning, and improve users’ well-being and even brand loyalty.
A service that users find fun reveals something about them
Tuuri has been thinking about fun for years. He started his academic career at JYU as a researcher of music. Tuuri pondered what makes playing an instrument or making music fun. Fun developed into a research topic when his research focus shifted towards game studies and human–technology interaction.
The ongoing Funmersive research project is funded by Business Finland.
In the project, fun is being investigated from an activity-based perspective: how and from what does fun emerge when somebody uses an online service, for example? What meanings does fun hold for the user?
Drawing particularly on the principles of playfulness, the project examines what factors in a service create a fun and rewarding user experience. The key question is whether playful characteristics of a service increase user engagement.
The researchers assume that services that are found to be inspiring are connected with users’ values and broader needs. Little is yet known about this particular issue, Tuuri says.
Does designing a fun service require a deeper understanding of its users?
Can an official service be playful?
However, Tuuri does not believe that there is a need for merely entertaining and gamified solutions for online services.
“They often increase superficial engagement with a service and provide satisfaction without any deeper sense of meaning or lasting commitment,” Kai Tuuri says.
Therefore, the kind of fun being sought is something more than a superficial emotional response.
Fun or playfulness in a service can encourage users to discover meanings and satisfaction spontaneously. People can form a lasting attachment to a service, and using it can shape their identity,” says Tuuri.
An obvious counterquestion is whether public-sector online services, such as social care and health care information systems, need any fun at all.
“The reasons for using these services are not inherently fun, but the services can foster trust and a sense of security, as well as people’s ability to influence their own lives. This lays sustainable ground for happiness, which is not necessarily far removed from fun. It is, therefore, reasonable to extend research on fun to these services as well,” Kai Tuuri explains.
Designers need a shared language for discussing fun
When the study is eventually completed, Tuuri hopes that the findings will benefit a large group of people: those who design, discuss and study games and services.
“It is especially valuable to identify service design practices that can support the aspect of fun in services in a sustainable way. At the same time, these practices would provide different service sectors with a deeper understanding of users.”
“This knowledge helps reveal what is essential about the significance services have for people,” Tuuri says.
We expect that designers and service architects, for example, will gain new concepts for discussing fun-related elements in the design of online services.”
The study will also help bring ‘the design of fun’ into wider public discussion and make it something that can be replicated.
At present, much of this knowledge remains within companies, Tuuri says.
Tuuri anticipates that in the future there will be an increasing need to understand the value a service provides to its users. Mere technical functionality will not be enough.
“A key notion in business is to understand users’ values and longer-term aspirations. Winning means understanding what a service means to people. This may require a profound understanding of fun.”
Playfulness can help us understand why people want to return to a service time and again.
Funmersive - Transformative and scalable customer engagement through immersive fun is a joint research project of the Universities of Jyväskylä and Turku, and it is funded by Business Finland. The project also involves five companies: MinnaLearn, Eduten, Rockway, Seppo and LeanLab.
