Nadya Direkova — currently a Senior Interaction Designer at Google, previously with Razorfish — discusses the application of game design techniques to web page design:

This talk illustrates how game design thinking provides new tools for the design of non-game products and campaigns. We discuss four ways in which game-design techniques enrich interactive design:

1. Understanding that in our ultimate goal as designers is to make the user happy. Games accept this by default.
2. Understanding a product or message better by imagining it as a game. If you have a message you want people to find and interact with, invite them to play with it!
3. Conveying a message by building it into an advergame.
4. Using game-inspired techniques to create a better experience in non-game products.

– Nadya Direkova @ idxa.org

Via The Acagamic.