The web world is agog over game design as the next silver bullet, slapping badges and progress bars over every annoying things they wish users to do. As user hit progress fatigue, "gamification" has come under fire. But why throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Game design is to web design what rocket science is to car mechanics, and just like Tang and Velcro, there is plenty in game design we can use in our every day life. Come and hear how mastery, irregular reward schedules and meaningful choices can make your site a pleasure for your users.

Christina Wodtke is an itinerant instigator and maker of things to happen. She is currently on sabbatical, advising start-ups and gardening. Most recently she led new product development and reinvention as a general manager of Zynga.com at Zynga, was general manager of Social at Myspace, principal product manager at Linkedin, and senior director of design at Yahoo! back when Yahoo! was pretty neat.

As well, she likes founding things: She founded a startup where she developed the collaborative blogging tool PublicSquare; founded Boxes and Arrows, an on-line magazine of design; and co-founded the Information Architecture Institute. She may found again.

Along the way she wrote the bestselling Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web, and has spoken on the topic of the human experience in information spaces at conferences worldwide. She writes still at Eleganthack.