Gamifying Gov.uk
Duration
March 2025 - March 2025
Role
UX designer
Categories
Gamification, Mobile app, GDS
Team size
1
Government services can be a bit dull, so let’s make them fun!
This case study was inspired by a recent CoP (Community of Practice) session that I ran with some colleagues at Methods for the other Interaction Designers. We wanted to explore the topic of gamification, and to make it more relevant to our day-to-day jobs, we thought about how we might be able to gamify Gov UK services - as we work with public sector clients.
In the end the session pivoted to gamify the mundane in every day life - a game which we called The Game of Life, and asked players to think about ways they could gamify small things in their day. Such as brushing their teeth, washing the dishes, doing the laundry and the morning commute.
I, however, was still inspired by the gamification of government services. So I decided to take on the challenge of gamifying ‘Register to Vote’.
Here’s how it went…
Why Gamify Register to Vote?
Voting is the foundation of democracy, yet many people—especially young voters—fail to register. Whether due to lack of awareness, disengagement, or thinking their vote doesn’t matter, this leads to low turnout and underrepresentation in decision-making.
Key Challenges:
📉 Young People Are Underrepresented: Voters aged 18-24 have the lowest turnout, meaning their concerns are less reflected in policy.
⚠️ Lack of Awareness: Many don’t realise they need to register, assume it’s complicated, or miss the deadline.
❌ Low Political Understanding: First-time voters may feel overwhelmed by jargon and misinformation, leading to disengagement.
🏡 Frequent Movers Struggle to Stay Registered: Students and young professionals who change addresses often may not realise they need to re-register each time they move.
The Opportunity:
Making voter registration more engaging and accessible can drive participation, create lifelong voters, and strengthen democracy. By removing barriers and improving the experience, we can encourage more people to take that first step toward having their voices heard.
Principles of gamification
🎯 Objectives
Creating clear goals allows us to set milestones for users. It provides them with a clear guideline regarding what they need to achieve to receive a reward.
🏅 Rewards
Positive reinforcement is a potent factor in human psychology. When rewarded, we feel happy and experience less stress due to increased activity in the brains’s dopamine circuit.
🏆 Competition
In a well-designed gamification experience, competitive interest pushes us to perform better. It has a powerful quality of engaging a person without willing to impede their opponents.
Gamification techniques and app features
-
For each day you complete a mini game, you’ll add an extra day to your streak.
-
Add your friends and compete with them to see who can earn the most XP and rise to the top of the weekly leaderboard.
-
Missions are mini games, where you can learn all about politics. Mini games and short 1-3 minute games that earn you points. The better you do and the more games you play, the more points you earn.
-
During sign up and throughout the missions, there’s a progress bar so you can see how far you’ve come and how much you’ve got left.
-
Earning a certain number of XP will allow you to level up, unlocking more mini games and more features.
