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Beyond Gamification. Designing up Maslow’s Pyramid.

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IainB:
At the risk of expending more of my cognitive surplus than I would usually like to expend on discussing something as daft as what a writer might have meant in a post where she apparently may not have understood what she meant herself in the first place:

There seems to be a great deal of material in published form and on the internet relating to the idea of the alignment of design with Maslow’s theoretical 5-level hierarchy of needs - e.g., there is the book "Maslow, Sustainability and Design Like You Give a Damn" by Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr. It's probably mostly BS unless you operate on an assumption along the lines (for example) that architects have forgotton that housing is intended to provide secure, healthy and cost-efficient human habitation with protection from the elements - i.e., things that could align with Maslow's hierarchy, never mind building regulations.
A lot of this material seems to be what some bloggers and news-agencies refer to as "t*rd-eating", where you take someone else's publication, idea or post, re-digest it and regurgitate it with your flavour - it's a form of plagiarism, but I suppose that it at least fills some whitespace with print, gets discussion going on your blog and might keep the hits coming.

So, where Nikki Chau says:
One more thing: Am I crazy for thinking about this in product design?
--- End quote ---
- she may be being disingenuous in an attempt to conceal her plagiarism. Of course that's not very likely. (Yeah, right.)

In any event, I took the term "Designing up Maslow’s Pyramid" to refer to the idea of product design being applied to the categories in "Maslow’s Pyramid", in an upwards direction - i.e., from bottom to top, where "Self-actualisation" is the topmost category in the hierarchy of needs. Whilst I would give Nikki Chau an "F" for the post if it were an essay intended to display good research and critical thinking, I would not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The (plagiarised?) idea is at least still interesting in itself, and it has some merit in that marketing theory, models and practice address the market needs first and foremost. This is different to the old producer-led model of pumping out products to unsophisticated markets regardless of what the consumers might have wanted or thought they needed.
For example:
"You can have any color Ford you want as long as it's black."
--- End quote ---

The other thing that you can do with good marketing is create a market by creating a need where there was none before. This is the quintessential Holy Grail of marketing.
Typical examples might be: the Apple iPad; off-road SUVs; Philip Morris International selling Marlboro cigarettes to children in Indonesia and other blighted third-world countries; drug barons, drug cartels and pharmaceutical companies are doing this sort of thing all the time in most Western and third-world countries. It's good for business.

Maslow’s theoretical 5-level hierarchy of needs:
1.0 Self-actualisation
     1.0.1 Esteem
          1.0.1.1 Love/belonging
               1.0.1.1.1 Safety
                    1.0.1.1.1. Physiological

I have drawn it as a linear hierarchy of parent/child categories, to illustrate that it would be unlikely in Maslow's model for an individual with D-needs ("Deficiency needs") to address (say) meeting the need for self-actualisation, without first having progressed through the lower levels - especially meeting the basic physiological needs of food and shelter.
Wikipedia: Maslow's theory suggests that the most basic level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire (or focus motivation upon) the secondary or higher level needs.
--- End quote ---

However, the theory suggests that a person with B-needs ("Being needs") could be an exception to the above, being "metamotivated" and would have the potential to transcend the four base categories so as to arrive at the 5th category. If this sort of ideal seems familiar, it might be because you spotted it in Heaven's Gate:
Hop on that spaceship tailing the Hale-Bopp asteroid with me baby, and we'll transcend humanity together - it's the last bus outta here!
--- End quote ---
Irrational religious belief and wish-fulfillment.

Some people might suggest that an implication of Maslow's hierarchy is that theoretically it could be be unlikely for a homeless person to achieve self-actualisation. However, some Indian Hindu fakirs might be able to show them otherwise, so maybe the fakirs are "metamotivated" or the theory is bunkum.
"Metamotivated" is arguably BS anyway, but we'd probably all like to feel that we were thusly motivated, because, heck - it sounds great, and much more important than being just "motivated".
I'm metamotivated baby!
--- End quote ---
(Sounds like something from the drugged sixties that Austin Powers would have said.)

The good news is that some rational psychological studies have found some interesting evidence that people seem to be motivated differently along a spectrum of exogenous to endogenous - e.g., there are those who address life's problems with a strong locus of internal control (endogenous), and those who have a weak locus of internal control and who thus expect problem-solving to be exogenous. There is a thing called a "miner sentence completion test" that discovers where an individual fits on the spectrum.
Having a strong locus of internal control merely means that one accepts a degree of responsibility for what happens to oneself and for what one does about it - e.g., addressing/resolving any of life's problems.

One of the great things about this theory of Maslow's was that it provided what was a completely new (in 1943) concept - an artificial framework of reference - with which to think about and try to better understand the human condition.
It is therefore a potentially useful thinking tool, and IMHO one not to be sniffed at if we value the process of thinking critically about our existence or purpose.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a preponderance of BS spouted on the subject. I hope I haven't contributed to the heap.
Excuse me, I must stop here as I see that I have self-actualised all over the carpet, and my wife wants me to clean it up.

Paul Keith:
I don't know much about the specifics of marketing theory but I did chance upon an assertion that marketing cannot create needs where there was none.

That said, I don't find your statement incorrect at all especially as you did specifically say "where there was none before".

That's kind of the controversial thing about marketing though. The two aspects don't always align.

One aspect treats marketing like developing cult-inducing media. The other aspect insists that there must be a need in there in order for a marketer to be able to do something about it.

When you combine this with concepts that do provide things where there was none before such as tech and then the aspects of tech that involve designing for ease and usability...and then those aspects, once performed well along with marketing, enabling a new form of demand to surface... it's simply tough to discredit the power of buzz as there's a finite amount of capable developers and even more finite amount of developers willing to go for the grain of usability that is married to developing original software that words such as gamification, intentional or unintentional, simply have their influence on the culture in general regardless whether it is based on hate or not. It influences direction and thankfully, often direction where people copy less used concepts rather than many of the older rehashed designs.

In some ways, the same can be said for turd eating. Even if we take away the aspect of essay writing or research into the equation: Blogosphere + Wikipedia crowd = massive turd eating. It's almost a necessity. Much as a blogger must add pictures to his texts and make it both SEO and reader friendly, people do simply take simple models like Maslow's theory and insert it into making a statement in the hopes that bringing something like that up is what will get people to talk about it. This is regardless of whether they have thought through what they were writing.

Yet, at the same, you have a scenario here where once you expand on the fallacious concept of Maslow - you simply build the case for it.

In this case, your latter post falls apart in that you try to simply tackle Maslow and why it's false with an analogy that doesn't address the designer request the author was saying. This designer request, if we were to simply view it as a designer request, ignores both 1.0.1.1.1 simply for the fact that this post is not talking about hardware or software security and that the author is aiming this more at the usability criteria when she says one has to build up to Maslow.

Treating her statement as merely a focus towards desktop or desktop-like (ex. tablet OSs, hardware ease of use design) needs then even though Maslow's assumption is flawed, it's not quite flawed when one is thinking of product design especially as even technical minded people decry upon buggy and unsafe software. In this scenario, physiology and safety are already demanded by software and hardware consumers. Building up love and belonging is then due to a product being so good that we get used to living with it and feel more euphoric living with it. (Example: the internet as it's layed out and presented today by modern browsers along with easier to register and start with online services)

In such a model, the call to build up something towards Maslow's model could simply be seen as desiring for better product design.

...but where one is often at a loss when trying to describe a product that is as usable as Apple to an Apple fanatic but is at the same time, not an Apple clone but an entirely new and different way of usability and comfort all together... this author simply hides behind Maslow's model to simplify such request.

Of course the controversy then is that many people view products with emotional connections as often being based on marketing and cult-making designs. The problem here is that even if we take away the marketing, can anyone of us really say it's so easy to reject not playing a gaming console with zero marketing with all it's games available inside our house for free even though it's all just some paper taped on the box to tell you what the names of the games are? I doubt it.

Well that's Ipads, off-road SUVs, cigarettes too. More importantly, often times, people claim the way to cure them of those addictive products is another addictive design. In such a scenario, is it then so wrong to desire addictive products especially more made for casual or niche needs software such as MS Office alternatives, Tablet PCs, mp3 players, online services, etc? I leave this up to the reader.

However, is the pursuit for addictive design so negative consider the success of the Ipod design as being what got other enablers to provide more "better" alternatives than the previous status quo?

The list goes on and on.

Without the demand for the OLPC, there's no netbook market.

Without Web 2.0 buzzword, there's less attempt at people trying to fill up the tag of being one of the top Web 2.0 services.

Without gamification, would people consider looking at games for reference on what design motivates and makes designs more usable?

Even in games, it wasn't until when technology got good enough with the PS2 and Dreamcast and X-box, that we start seeing developers adding rpg concepts on other genres in bulk even though DOS games prove that it could work and worked wonderfully at making games actually be more fun. Yet few did it until some mainstream thing got so popular, people re-copied it even though their take may not be as good.

...And esteem and self-actualization, whether we like it or not drives our humanity.

People go on to be artists upon being inspired by the greats of the past (not most of the actual greats, whose works are mainstream enough to reach their ears as a kid).

People go on to be early gen coders while feeling something euphoric upon viewing this mechanized thing with it's terminals and BBS and beautiful unknown creature so much so that in Cronenberg's videogame inspired movie existenz and videodrome, technology was organic and alien and where the viewer may be disgusted - the people in those universes, just as certain people today with Apple, treat those items as products that build up their identity and love and confidence, etc.

Whether we like it or not, technology is now a need. We've pumped it into our psychology. Is it really then so wrong to not build up on that technology especially as even today, developers do improve and upgrade their software. Regardless whether there's a guy that hates Apple products and prefers Linux, if he's a coder, he's working on improving Linux towards that state of cult worship if it isn't already this way currently and for the author even though current product design may have already tackled this issue, the reason they may be bringing up a flawed model like Maslow is because maybe they aren't seeing many products that tickle their emotions such as Apple products.

It may not even be Apple. They may just want more innovative products (from their casual definition of product design fulfilling non-techie emotional needs) much the same as the way Apple went against the critics and prove everyone wrong about the demand for Tablet PCs. They may not even want someone creating a demand out of nothing before. They may instead want someone to simply build up towards Apple for Apple fans but for different groups. It may simply be a request that due to ignorance and the ease of blogging became what would end up as a blog post about building up to Maslow's model.

IainB:
I don't know much about the specifics of marketing theory but I did chance upon an assertion that marketing cannot create needs where there was none.
-Paul Keith (October 19, 2011, 10:35 PM)
--- End quote ---
I usually would advise caution when assertions are being made, because they can generally be meaningless if not substantiated by fact or at least solid theory.
"The earth is flat." - an assertion that was based on a not-so-solid "theory" - and it would have remained flat if Copernicus had not messed things up with his ruddy rational mathematical proofs, observations and theories. Mankind has seemed to need fairy stories (myths, religions) for ever, and it hurts when those myths are blasted away. Copernicus was lucky to get out of it alive.
So, the assertion that "marketing cannot create needs" may be as useful as the statement that "the earth is flat".

Conversely, I don't know that anyone asserted absolutely that marketing can definitely create new markets by creating a new need where there was none before, but it is certainly the sort of thing that marketing students were taught that they should aim for in Marketing 101.

It is often debated that maybe you can't really create a new need where there was none before, and that it might simply be that you discover something that was already there - a latent or potential need. Certainly, SUVs are an interesting case, and marketers believe that sort of thing to be a consummate achievement of marketing.
I think it was British Leyland/Landrover that started the SUV concept off in the '70s, by producing an up-market and more comfortable version of the hardy utility Landrover called a Range Rover. The A1s (e.g., Princess Anne and her hubby Mark) would tend to buy them to drive them and their retrievers to their riding/hunt events or grouse shoots, so it was instantly OK with the A1s and the Chelsea set and the B1s who aspired to being and wanted to emulate the A1s. It created a new market for what might have formerly been considered an impractical vehicle, and the market has evolved so that an SUV is commonplace and people now feel they need one and don't have to justify it. It is more likely that they want one at a deep subconscious level because they have been so conditioned and have probably got into a state of Ahamkara over it. Happens all the time.

For example, Oakley-branded sunglasses. Nike-branded hoodies. In some cities, impoverished youths will apparently even mug you if you are wearing these things - just to steal them from you - because they "need" them so bad to feel "self-actualised".
Nothing wrong in this. It's good for business and economic growth. However, I personally wonder whether we may risk being debased and limited in our self-development by succumbing to the various marketing ploys, against which we may have poor defences to their subtle intrusion. At the same time, having studied marketing and psychology, I cannot but be admiringly appreciative of the way in which the application of good marketing theory, strategy and tactics can manipulate whole markets and the minds of the people in those markets - e.g., Apple and the Church of the late and great Steve Jobs, selling new cereal products for children via TV commercials. These are not points put forward to argue, nor are they opinions, just interesting questions/observations that occur to me.

Following on from this, I am not sure that I can usefully contribute to a good deal of your post, as (though I could be wrong, of course) you seem to be entering a debate about things using ambiguous terminology that probably needs definition before I can fully understand what you are intending to mean.
For example, "marketing" and "gamification" - I have my definition for the former, but I suspect it may not be the same as yours, judging from how you use the term, and I have no definition at all for the latter, as it is currently meaningless BS to me (QED).
I learned to do this (define my terms in a discussion) by watching a BBC TV programme called "The Brains Trust" on our B&W TV when I was a child. There was a panel of erudite scholars and philosophers who were posed a subject to discuss. When sloppy definition cropped up, one particular wise professor would tend to say, "Well, it all depends what you mean by [insert term]...". For all I know, you might be able to make all sorts of valid arguments using the term "gamification" - if it had an agreed definition to contribute to a logical proposition.

So I won't enter into a debate about those things, if you don't mind.
Thus, where you say:
...your latter post falls apart...
--- End quote ---
- I am at a loss, as there seems to be nothing to "fall apart". Whilst it might be badly/hastily written, I was not trying to structure a proposition or argument for debate, but was genarally merely pointing out that Maslow's theory would seem to be a weak thing on which to base an argument for anything, because the research that relates to it has apparently only been able to throw the whole thing into question - i.e., the opposite of substantiating it (QED). There is apparently no proof that the theory holds out in practice (QED).
This would be quite the reverse, for example, to the validity of the theory (unverifiable at the time it was proposed) of gravitational lenses postulated by Einstein.

Thus the thesis of  Nikki Chau's post is definitely invalid to start with, so why waste time discussing an invalid proposition unless it is to explore the reasons why it is invalid? That's arguably likely to be the only useful thing (analysis of reasoning as to why the argument is invalid) that could be gained from discussing it. Otherwise we might be better off - and have more fun - debating (say) the existence of winged fairies (because everyone already knows that the wingless variety exists as pixies).

Similarly, I am at a loss when you say:
..and that the author is aiming this more at...
--- End quote ---
- as I have no idea what she is aiming at, and I don't see how you can have special knowledge of what she is aiming at either, when what she is saying is irrational (QED).    ;)

Paul Keith:
Lol, true true. I guess in this case, the assertion was from a book but I consider the book to be marketing fluff though to be fair compared to the other fluff out there, this one at least had a few data thrown in but I still can't help but feel like I was reading an ad in the end. It's why I was hesitant to throw out that statement.

I never took any Marketing 101 classes but yeah selling the dream is so wide spread around the internet, I'm kind of disappointed at hearing your hint about Marketing 101 but I guess that's kind of the nature of what happens when marketing becomes distilled into a generic class. It is kind of ironic. The goal of marketing is to improve the brand of a product and yet the actual brand of marketing is so piss poor, it seems to only stand on it's reputation of convincing companies that there's a charlatan here who can magically bring you profits while showing colorful charts to explain why it's going to work.

I sincerely thank you for sharing that link on ahamkara. Coincidentally I'm currently reading the English version of the Bhagavad Gita and I might have glossed over many of these complicated words without realizing that they have a much deeper meaning to them. (or it might be that I haven't gotten to it yet, I didn't quite know what I was getting into when I read this. Too much Krishna this and Krishna that so far)

Yeah, you could say marketing's ultimate goal is the opposite of ahamkara.

Using some of your examples in that link, a moral marketer may instead:

Convince a sensible young man to feel that his new sports car was a reflection of his true self and to not drive through recklessly with it without taking heavy precautions just as he would not recklessly endanger his own body.

Convince someone who believe in the fight for peace, and who ordinarily might behave in a non-violent manner, to come to blows with someone who threatened or challenged his notions of peace via more effective non-violence even in the face of wanting to purse violence.

Of course this is all hypothetical. I don't think or believe actual moral marketers do this but in the hypothetical sense of ahamkara, marketers would rather deal with the illusions and utilize it into a direction than expound it unless it provides them with any leverage but what leverage is there in a product reliant world full of product ignorant users? People can't even have modern empathy for global warming without a marketed propaganda movie in the Inconvenient Truth style.

I don't know if Oakley-branded glasses are a good example for self-actualization though. It seems more rooted in safety + love/belonging. Safety in that they can acquire something expensive to sell and belonging in that they managed to be the ones good enough to acquire and wear one among their neighborhood. Mind you I don't even know what Oakley-branded glasses are. I simply don't have any inkling for any branded glasses. I get one. I buy one. I wear one. That's always been my perspective of sunglasses. If there's a convincing factor, it's the tint of the glasses not the brand for me. However it does sound like a luxury item and well this is the casual perspective of luxury items for any one living in slum-like environments.

I think as far as both marketing and gamification goes, I did try to throw out my specific definition for marketing by laying it over two overlaying aspects. As far as gamification goes, something more specific to me would be role defining marketing. If you look at many of the gamification aspects, they don't try to turn objects into games (at least not to the extent that we would view videogames) but instead they adopt elements specifically those of the rpg genres that other genres would later adopt to their games. Badges I feel are just a primitive example rooted more around the original scouting for what would eventually be social gaming. A concept that basically took everything that worked in browser based games such as flash and online rpgs that have less graphics combined it with the Sims and then added on top of free to play/pay to compete design. I don't have a background on social gaming either though. This is just my opinion even before Farmville got released and I sincerely believe any Harvest Moon fan no matter how hardcore or casual has figured out the social gaming model even if they haven't played one social game nor know any programming.

As far as more concrete less theoretical examples, I do have a jot on fun theory:

http://subjot.com/Foolness/fun+theory+videos

Not trying to advertise my profile, that link just has my curated collection of examples that both fit my definition of marketing and gamification all in one link which makes it more convenient for me to just paste this then look for any specific example to represent my viewpoint.

As far as Maslow's model being weak, it's why I said:

Yet, at the same, you have a scenario here where once you expand on the fallacious concept of Maslow - you simply build the case for it.
--- End quote ---

Where Maslow's model is weak at addressing humanity, applied to product design, it is stronger and thus why I said in the effort to expound on it's weakness - you've simply highlighted it's strengths by expanding on the weakness of humanity's desire for products as well as the make up of what entails a marketed product.

Which in turn makes it so that when Nikki's original post was weak to begin with, it becomes stronger with your words as you highlight more and more the difference between human needs for products and basic human needs.

Finally, as for knowing where she's aiming, all bloggers aim for an audience and right now if you zoom out on this thread - it seems like her topic have generated quite a conversation. No thanks to the both of us.  :P

IainB:
Thought-provoking response!

I sincerely thank you for sharing that link on ahamkara.
--- End quote ---
Thank YOU. I learned about this concept in about 1994, when I attended a series of educational sessions at The School of Philosophy in Wellington, New Zealand. I was mindboggled by it at first. I found it to be one of the most profoundly useful concepts that I have come across, and it helps to explain a state of being or perception that I had hitherto been unable to understand. It helped me to understand myself a little more. I am so pleased if the link has proved useful. Please pass it on.

I don't know if Oakley-branded glasses are a good example for self-actualization though.
--- End quote ---
No they are probably not, depending on how you define "self-actualization", but I have no idea what "self-actualization" means.
I was trying to make a joke by mocking Maslow's idea of "self-actualisation" being at the top of the hierarchy - and by association so might be the thugs doing the mugging.
You see, if Maslow's theory has been debunked (QED), then so has his idea of "self-actualisation". It's all part and parcel of the same thing. You can't pick a piece out of a logically invalid/irrational structure and use it as though it were magically valid/rational just because you might (say) like the sound of it. It is and will remain BS for all practical purposes. That's why I wrote above:
...I have self-actualised all over the carpet...
--- End quote ---
- the whole idea is stupid/funny.

Of course this is all hypothetical. I don't think or believe actual moral marketers do this...
--- End quote ---
LOL. "Moral marketers" - a novel concept. An oxymoron.

Yet, at the same, you have a scenario here where once you expand on the fallacious concept of Maslow - you simply build the case for it.
--- End quote ---
Eh? Who is this guy Maslow anyway?     ;)

...when Nikki's original post...
--- End quote ---
And who the heck is Nikki?

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