This is NOT sponsored by animal crossing (lol) but would I say no… ??? [absolutely, I would say no. This blog is 100% unsponsored and I plan to keep it that way!]
For Chanukah, Mr. Spreadsheet Whisperer and I purchased a new videogame device (the kind that you play animal crossing on!!! they don’t need my help with marketing…) and we’ve been having so much fun! This holiday week, as the days dragged on, we decided to (finally) purchase Animal Crossing, a game where you basically colonize an island and work for a company store. Ok, the politics aren’t great but the game is so fun, it really transports me away from the “here and now.” And that is exactly what I wanted to sign up for!
During playtime, I’ve had so many “lightbulb” moments about how well the game designers incorporated learning and development into the island world. Without feeling like I was “reading boring instructions,” I was able to start playing right away and learn how to push the right buttons to take action in the virtual environment. Without further ado, here are 5 user onboarding tips from Animal Crossing.
1 – learn by exploring
As I walked around the island, my natural curiosity kicked in… big time. My mind was full of creative questions, such as “what happens over here?” “how do I get more points?” “what do I do in my tent?” etc. Instead of reading instructions, I was able to interact with the different features of the game to learn why they were important. I quickly learned how to pick up branches, read the bulletin board, harvest weeds, etc. A few hours later, Mr. Spreadsheet Whisperer noticed that you can shake trees to make more stuff rain down. The game designers are clear about giving social rewards for talking with other characters (by revealing tips and giving points). These tips guide without revealing exactly what we should do to succeed in the game – which makes advancing in the game all the more satisfying because I feel like I “figured it out.”
Connection to tech onboarding: I hear a lot about the concept of “gamification” in the tech training world – does that sound familiar to you? However, within the conceit of the game, I’ve been so impressed by learning through exploration, rather than following directions to earn points. The exploration does result in points too, however the points alone are less motivating than the feeling of problem solving (for me, at least, but I think this is true for lots of people!). What if we created user training guides that were more like “what happens when you change the data from “x” to “y”?” or “hint! you might want to refresh the dashboard to see what changed!” And then from the dashboard, you encounter goals (perhaps $ of records in a certain stage…) and then you are motivated to go find those records and update them or create them. The game designers seem to think that players are capable of figuring things out on our own and reward us for doing so. Can we translate that mindset into how we interact with our colleagues who are learning new tech systems for the first time?
Try it at home: Next time you are training a new team member, try spinning up a sandbox with some deliberately messy records. Then, create a Dashboard of Zeros that is tailored to the specific errors in the records. Finally, ask your new team member to find the problem records and update them on their own. They’ll know they were successful if they see a change in the Dashboard of Zeros!
2 – increase expectations over time
The game does not get harder per se, but it does get more interesting over time. I have more materials, (eventually) more land, more choices, more characters, more collaboration… the list goes on. I don’t even know what the game has in store but according to some Reddit threads I peaked at, the game gets a lot more complicated (and fun) once I get the basics down.
I noticed that early in the game, I could do “crafts” (which are more like recipes) after I have gathered the raw materials and the instructional cards needed to “teach me.” Over time, these crafts get more complicated and I need to gather more materials, build new tools, or wait for supplies to regenerate. This kept me engaged and motivated, but I never felt like I was being “kicked out of the nest.” In this way, I realize that I am quietly increasing my skills without even realizing it! Meanwhile, the game expects me to be able to interpret new challenges because I have already been successful with the simple ones.
Connection to tech onboarding: I have noticed that tech training often covers basics that are so simple that they are almost self explanatory (and they can be interpreted as condescending). For example, “how to turn on your computer.” However, the more difficult things that we use these tech platforms to do get much less attention than the basics. It’s sort of a model of, “here are the building blocks, now go out and make a palace!” In my own work, I know I spend so much time teaching new colleagues how to create records and comparatively less time teaching when and how to update records singularly or in “batch.” Sometimes, my team is surprised when records are still in their original state. I see this as a training problem – we have taught the basics well, but we haven’t done a good job scaffolding higher expectations. These scenarios might seem intuitive to us, but they are not! In Animal Crossing, you would probably bump into a character who would go give you a hint to check on the widgets you’ve already made and see if they need any updates.
Try it at home: Label training units with “beginning, intermediate, advanced” tags. Make sure that trainees have completed beginning before continuing to the next level. This will make sure that you don’t get stuck in “beginner only mode” while also ensuring that the trainee is ready for more challenging concepts. Make a simple sticker chart, spreadsheet, or database app 😉 for tracking training completion! A sentence that I find helpful for this is, “now that you’ve done X so well, you’re ready to try Y! I’m going to put some time on our calendars to go over how to do Y.”
3 – get excited about change
The screenshot above is from the “official” Animal Crossing website “getting started” page. I noticed that there were some specialty items for “sale” in the game for the Gregorian New Year holiday and some seasonal design elements (based on winter in the Northern Hemisphere!) but it did not occur to me that there were special features separated out by month. This made me excited to encounter these elements of the game. I was surprised by this reaction, because usually my experience with “once a year” or “once in awhile” tasks is that they are hard to remember and execute properly. As a general rule, I don’t look forward to them. (Looking at YOU – January-new-year tasks coming up…)
Below this section of the website was another header with links to various game Updates and Release Notes and my first thought was, “oooh cool!” and also, “when does the next one come out?”. I was surprised by my reaction to these pages, because usually I find app updates to be kind of draining. I am a bit embarrassed to admit this… but unless there is a security patch, I try to avoid phone updates as long as possible. The Salesforce release notes are typically hundreds of pages long. I never read them; just look out for summary blog posts from writers who I trust. How does a game like Animal Crossing get us excited about rare features and changes?
Connection to tech onboarding: First, let’s validate that change is hard. And it’s especially hard when something you’ve worked hard to learn changes out from under your feet. It’s reasonable to be skeptical of change. We are the victims of planned obsolescence and the prioritization of features that sometimes make technology seem harder to use rather than easier. Ok, now I’ve gotten this out of the way!
Animal Crossing has an advantage over the tech platforms that I use for work, school, or social change volunteering. First of all, it’s a game that I’m choosing to play. Second of all, it’s a world where novelty is rewarded and “rare” items are highly valued. So, of course we all want to experience the new, exciting things. We don’t want to get bored. Animal Crossing has done an amazing job signaling to us that “change is good” and that “changes will make game play more fun!” How can we incorporate that into tech training?
Try it at home: The next time there are big changes coming to a platform that you use regularly (or you are in charge of, if relevant)… whether those changes come from new features you built or software updates from the platform itself… try to use these features to tell a story. For example, I’m thinking of a change that we recently rolled out which used a “wizard-like format” to help staff create complicated records with related sub-records. When we launched the change, we told a story about how frustrating this used to be, and how easy it is now. Then we talked about the benefits of accurate data entry, both for us and people outside of the organization who rely on our data! This is so much more compelling than saying “this change happened and this is available now.”
There is a separate category of changes that make new things possible, but we aren’t actively using them yet. Those are harder to “message,” even if the recipient of the messaging is really just yourself. Here’s a sentence starter that you can use to spark ideas: ”What if…?” ”What if we could use this new post-it feature for documentation? Huh that will take a lot of work…” “What if our next X was able to leverage Y?” or even “What if I make a Zoom date with a friend who knows more about this feature [was in the beta testers for this feature, for example!] so that they can show me how it works?”
4 – time is just as important as skill
Like many world-building video games, Animal Crossing knows how much time we spend playing the game. Also, the game tracks what day and time it is in the real world. They use time for things like regenerating crops, building houses, and establishing habits in the virtual world. You receive points for doing certain (simple) tasks every day, which are just as important as achieving bigger goals in one long gaming session. Of course, this builds the addictive behavior of logging into the app (hehe) but I think there’s a bigger takeaway, as well. The habit forming behaviors of doing certain items every day and logging in consistently are the building blocks of tech learning. In fact, it’s pretty hard or even impossible to learn tech tools without making a long term habit of using them.
Also, logging in every day puts experienced gamers and beginners (hi!) on the same playing field. An experienced gamer (perhaps someone who has played AC before, or gotten far in other video games) might be better at catching fish and sea butterflies than me (which has to do with manipulating the buttons on the controller at just the right timing). They might also be better at strategy (trading materials for better materials or deciding how to spend their time or points on the island). But something I can do just as well as them is sign in and do my virtual stretch routine and go to the virtual ATM!
Connection to tech onboarding: Skill develops with time. This isn’t a big discovery, but I think it’s worth naming explicitly. I suggest breaking learning down into chunks that are scheduled every day or a few times a week (as capacity allows) rather than doing one, big brain dump all in one day.
Try it at home: Bring an attitude that anyone can learn if they are provided with sufficient time and resources. Make a training plan for new staff that rewards on-the-job learning and not only prior knowledge. Spread out training over several days, weeks, or months.
5 – cuteness is motivating
Last but not least, the Animal Crossing world is ADORABLE! I am a firm believer that design makes us want to spend time in some online places more than others. That’s why I’m being so meticulous about making my Notion boards cute! And I think that’s why sites like Neopets and games like Pokemon were (and are) so successful at capturing our hearts. Salesforce has notably accomplished this with its family of mascots and adorable national parks theme for conferences and online learning. What other examples can you come up with for this?
Connection to tech onboarding: I love the idea of having a swag item that is connected to your org’s mission that trainees earn when they have completed onboarding. To make it tech related, you can always order branded powerbanks (aka mobile charging batteries) or cord dongles which are thematically aligned and useful (I know we can never have enough).
Additionally, how can you make your training materials and your internal docs (documentation, database page layouts, spreadsheets, etc) pleasing to the eye? The difference might be subtle, but I think it goes a long way to making training less boring. For example, try putting a photo and a caption from your organization’s programs or mission related activities at the end of every training doc!
Try it at home: I don’t have anything to add beside what I wrote above!
in conclusion
I hope you found these examples compelling and motivating to bring the best training tips into the Gregorian New Year! I’d love to hear from you if you also play AC (want to visit my island?) or if you find any of these ideas particularly resonant. Getting comments from you is even more exciting than catching virtual presents with my virtual slingshot!