Are interactive leaderboards effective in keeping users motivated

Some of us are old enough to remember the days of chalkboards and flip charts. There was a time when, if you worked in an office, they were the whole lifeblood of the office and were used for meetings and by team leaders to get their points across. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that we started to see the emergence of interactive whiteboards, and these office meetings and gatherings became more animated and detailed.

Interactive leaderboards are now used by multiple industries. While we see them in highly sales-driven jobs, there’s also been growth in the world of entertainment, which has the sole aim of keeping users as engaged and motivated as possible.

As human beings, we thrive on competition and on being acknowledged and rewarded for our work. The rise of the internet has made it much easier to link leaderboards across different platforms, sectors, businesses and users, depending on your industry.

As industries move forward and other tech innovations like AI play a greater role, how will interactive leaderboards adapt to this rapidly changing dynamic? Let’s take a look.

Interactive leaderboards in gaming

If you are a millennial or Gen Z, then your first exposure to interactive leaderboards likely arose in the world of gaming. The rise of online gaming has resulted in billions of dollars in profit for console designers who have embraced the trend, but in the broader gaming industry, interactive leaderboards have helped generate countless hours of engagement.

We saw it on social media in the late 2000s, when Facebook games used interactive leaderboards to pit millions of people from around the world against each other. iGaming, which is a multibillion-dollar industry on its own, has adopted a similar approach.

The best rated online slots are not reliant on interactive leaderboards, but whenever a player lands a win on a slot game, especially a big one, platforms post about it across their social media channels as a highly effective form of marketing. Other online games often use interactive leaderboards to generate engagement, too. They have been rolled out across the industry over the last decade and a half.

Why do they work so effectively in sales?

Provided a technological innovation can capture a large market, businesses will not hesitate to see how they can integrate it into their business model. The rise of AI has led to interactive leaderboard technology that incorporates increased automation, helping deliver a more bespoke touch to how these lists operate.

Generative AI is transforming web searches, but when it comes to interactive leaderboards, there is a personal element that platforms need to be careful not to lose sight of. Often, the most significant factor in keeping users motivated is the ability to face off against those who are close to them in the list. Seeing their progress in real time, alongside the moving averages and the standard of competition they face, inspires players to compete to come out on top.

From a management perspective, they provide real-time access to information about those who are most adept and consistently rank at the top. Those who find themselves at the top of interactive leaderboards, especially in sales environments, will find that managers will often use them as examples to improve the whole approach and technique that their team and company implement.

That is just one element of effective sales leadership, but there are a few live tools that can provide a clearer picture of what is going on in the department than an interactive leaderboard.

Tailoring it to the industry

Obviously, sales is just one industry where interactive leaderboards have a significant impact. In fact, it is probably the clearest example of how they work. When it comes to motivation, leaderboards can be chopped up into different sections.

For instance, if there are different leagues or leaderboards, it can be helpful to limit the leaderboard to 25 people. In a bid to maximize the competition, those who fall too far behind the top of the table can be incentivized to finish in the top of the bottom section, or leaderboards can use specific measuring tools, granting prizes, awards or motivation for those who achieve the highest rating in one specific field.

Using the example of sales again, this could mean that whoever sells the most stock in an hour is awarded a prize. Depending on the hour, that could be anyone on the leaderboard. It motivates those who might have had a poor start to the day to continue churning out their best efforts in a bid to win a prize.

In gaming, it can be used to reward those who sit at the top of the leaderboard after a day, week or month. There are hundreds of ways to do this. Theoretically, and as more of our world becomes technologically driven and reliant on the internet and IoT, interactive leaderboards will continue to play an enormous role in the market's growth.

Conclusion

Those who have used leaderboards will understand just how motivating they can be. While they can also have negatives for those who do not enjoy having their performance broadcast to the world, overall, they provide a lot more motivation than demotivation. As long as this balance remains, we can expect to see them remain an integral tool throughout the world of gaming and international business.

(Disclaimer: Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)