USING GAME PLAY ELEMENTS TO MOTIVATE LEARNING

• US 20100331064A1
• Filed: 05/28/2010
• Published: 12/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: HELIN, JONAS, ALEXIEFF, MARK R., MICHELSTEIN, JENNIFER P.
• Granted Patent: US 8,979,538 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/1
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/46 Computing the game score
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/533 for prompting the player, e.g. by displaying a game menu
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/5375 for graphically or textually suggesting an action, e.g. by displaying an arrow indicating a turn in a driving game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/798 for assessing skills or for ranking players, e.g. for generating a hall of fame computing the game score A63F13/46
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/558 by assessing the players' skills or ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/20 Education

Abstract

Elements of game play, such as usage statistics, scores, levels, challenges, achievements, competition, and the like, are incorporated into a productivity application to assist in motivating users to learn features of the productivity application. A recommendation system is utilized to assist users in determining what features of the application to learn next. Help content that is associated with the productivity application can also be tied to the features that are currently being learned and used by the user such that the linked help content is readily available. Users may compare their scores and compete with other persons that are also participating in the game play learning system.

Claims

1. A method for utilizing game elements within a productivity application, the method executing on a processor of a computer, comprising:

tracking features being utilized by a user within the application;

wherein the application is a productivity application;

calculating a score as the user utilizes the tracked features;

determining challenges to provide to the user;

wherein the challenges include features of the application for the user to learn;

displaying the challenges to the user;

displaying the score to the user;

receiving a selection of one of the provided challenges;

providing the selected challenge to the user; and

comparing the user'"'"'s score to at least one other user and providing a display of the comparison to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the challenges comprises determining a new feature that is not included in a version of the productivity application and including the new feature in the provided challenges to the user.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising providing information relating to the new feature to the user upon selection of the challenge relating to the new feature.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying the challenge that includes the new feature differently from the other provided challenges such that the challenge that includes the new feature is distinguishable from the other provided challenges.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising accessing a social networking site and obtaining a list of users from the social networking site that are associated with the user to present to the user within a display of the selected challenge.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising posting a message to the social networking site in response to a change in the score of the user.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein comparing the score of the user to the at least one other user and providing the display of the comparison to the user comprises comparing the score of the user to the list of users of the social networking site.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein comparing the user'"'"'s score to the at least one other user comprises displaying the at least one other user'"'"'s score in relation to the user'"'"'s score.

9. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for utilizing game elements within a productivity application, the instructions executing on a processor of a computer, comprising:

tracking features being utilized by a user within the application;

wherein the application is a productivity application;

calculating a score as the user utilizes the tracked features;

determining challenges to provide to the user based on the tracked features utilized by the user;

wherein the challenges include features of the application to learn;

providing the challenges to the user within a display;

receiving a selection of one of the provided challenges;

displaying the score;

directly linking help content that is natively supplied by the application to the selected challenge, such that the linked help content is provided to the user upon selection of a hint button during the challenge; and

comparing the score to other users that are obtained from a social networking site.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, further comprising providing a direct comparison between the score of the user and a selected user obtained from the social networking site.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein displaying the score comprises displaying a component score for each of the components that determine the score and displaying an indicator that shows how the score for each component compares to a score of the selected user for the component.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the challenges include challenges that relate to new features that are not available in a version of the application.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, further comprising providing an option that allows the user to receive more information about the new feature.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein providing the recommendations to the user is based on features being used by a group of users using the application that is selected by the user.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the other users obtained from the social networking site are displayed with the displayed challenge.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein a version of the application is displayed with each display of the other users.

17. A system for utilizing game elements within a productivity application, comprising:

a processor and a computer-readable medium;

an operating environment stored on the computer-readable medium and executing on the processor;

a network connection;

a productivity application and a feature manager operating on the processor; and

configured to perform tasks, comprising;

tracking features being utilized by a user within the application;

wherein the application is a productivity application;

calculating a score as the user utilizes the tracked features;

determining challenges to provide to the user based on the tracked features utilized by the user;

wherein the challenges include new features of the application to learn and challenges that relate to features unavailable within a version of the productivity application being used by the user;

directly linking help content that is natively supplied by the application to each of the challenges, such that the linked help content for one of the recommended challenges is provided to a user without performing a search for the linked help content;

providing the challenges within a display;

displaying the score for the user and another user, along with a display showing a component score for each of the components that determine the score and displaying an indicator that shows how the score for each component compares to a score of the another user for the component;

receiving a selection of one of the provided challenges; and

providing a training challenge to allow a user to practice the recommended challenge that is selected.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein providing the training challenge is provided to the another user to create a head-to-head competition between at least two users.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein providing the challenges to the user is based on features being used by a group of users in a social networking site.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising updating the score when the score does not reflect a user'"'"'s total score upon logging into the social networking site.