Flow, Mastery and Ease-of-Use

Recently the web design community has been eating up the secrets of game design. The Gamification trend merely borrowed simple game mechanics, from badges to progress bars. But now designers are looking more closely at core game design principles like design for flow and mastery, blending them with our old friend, ease of use. But how many of these techniques are relevant for more everyday sites, like ecommerce and productivity apps?

Flow is a concept popularized by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. It describes the ineffable state between boredom and excessive difficulty in which time disappears and you are pleasurably lost the execution of a task.
Full story...